PN 4111 
.H33 
I860 
Copy 1 



L 



imm;m 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



«tar. p/v^wi 



l<r. 



H3S 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Hfc*SR»:*; T X X X X X X Xr&&&m 



THE SPEAKEK AT HOME. 

r 



" Fnngar vice cotis, acutam 
Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." — Horace. 

" Mine be the whetstone's task ! which, blunt itself, 
Can to the knife its keenest edge impart." 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME 

CHAPTERS ON PUBLIC SPEAKING AND 
READING ALOUD. 



BY THE EEV. J. J. HALCOMBE, M. A. 

LATE SCHOLAR OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE. 



AND ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH, 

BY W. H. STONE, M. A., M. B. 

9 

LATE SCHOLAR AT BALLIOL COLLEGE, 



SECOND EDITION. 




LONDON: 

BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET. 

1860. 




PREFACE. 




HE following pages are more espe- 
cially addressed to the younger 
members of the Universities, in the 
confident hope that the subjects of 
which they treat will soon be recognized in 
their full importance by every man who is look- 
ing forward to serve in the Christian ministry. 
The time has passed when the Church of Eng- 
land can afford to let judgment go by default ; 
and she has already suffered much by her supine- 
ness in this particular. 

Unfortunately, erroneous opinions on this 
subject have been blindly acquiesced in until 
they have gained, a sort of prescriptive au- 
thority ; and even now, men of the most 
earnest and practical turn of mind are again 
and again found to endorse the absurd par- 
adox, that, though the best years of life may 
advantageously be spent in storing the mind 
with the treasures of knowledge, yet a few 
weeks' study of the only means of applying 



vi PREFACE. 

this knowledge should be absolutely forbidden — 
lest, forsooth, it should result in " foppery," in 
" affectation," or in " theatrical display." With- 
out attempting to argue against an objection so 
shadowy, we can only say that, so far from hav- 
ing any foundation in truth or reason, it seems 
to be a gratuitous insult to the Clergy, an insult 
to their office, and an insult to common sense. 
An insult to the Clergy, because surely that 
charity which believeth all things may well be- 
lieve that any personal feelings would, as a rule, 
be entirely subordinated to the interests of the 
great work entrusted to them. An insult to their 
office, because when was it ever heard that men 
placed themselves in any responsible situation 
without long preparation for, at least, its more 
arduous duties. And lastly, an insult to common 
sense, because it is utterly incompatible with 
our experience in analogous cases. Does the 
soldier, borne along in the full tide of battle, 
think of the evolutions or the exact step of the 
parade-ground ? Does the practised swimmer, 
battling with the waves to save a life, think of 
each once carefully studied movement ? Deci- 
dedly not! Why then should it be supposed 
that an earnest man, engaged in the crowning 
act of his week's ministry, and oppressed with 
the sense that in the mysterious ways of God's 
providence the unalterable destiny of some of 



PREFACE. vii 

his hearers may be imperilled upon his single 
appeal, why, I say, under such circumstances, 
should it be supposed that an earnest man would 
be thinking of rules, or of gratifying the little- 
ness of mere personal vanity ? 

We may well hope that such objections will 
soon cease to prevent reading and speaking be- 
coming recognized subjects of study ; and, as a 
necessary consequence, the general standard of 
proficiency in them being raised far above its 
present level. 



The chapters on reading aloud were originally 
thrown together for a lecture at the Crosby 
Hall Mechanics' Institute ; and it seemed pre- 
ferable to endeavour to write the rest of this 
little work in the style of a lecture, rather than 
recast that which was so far prepared. 

July 25, 1859 




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

^N thanking those gentlemen who 
have so kindly complied with the 
request contained in page 47 of the 
former edition* of this work, the 
author would venture again to draw attention 
to the advantage which may be derived from 
the results of experience being thus from time 
to time collected. 

Nov. 1859. 

* Page 43 of this edition. 




CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 
EARERS not necessarily listeners — illustrated 
by anecdote. Why attention is best arrested 
by extempore speaking. Archbishop Whate- 
ley 's analogy. Obj ections to extempore speak- 
ing. Want of fluency in conversation not ne- 
cessarily a disqualification for public speaking. Failure 
of subject-matter arises from want of preparation. A clear 
view of a subject to be gained only by writing upon it. 
Objection arising from abuse of extempore speaking . . 1 

Chapter II. On gaining a command of words. Private 
practice for speaking. Difficulties to be overcome. Details 
of plan for practice. Vindication of plan .... 8 

Chapter III. Nervousness inseparable from first attempts 
at public "speaking — illustrated by anecdote. Timidity 
should be overcome by early training. Schools not yet 
available. Unions and debating societies at the Univer- 
sities should be made more available 13 

Chapter IV. Plan to be pursued by those already engaged 
in active life. The cause to which a celebrated orator as- 
cribed his power. Lord Chesterfield's maxims. Correct- 
ness in conversation. Indulgence extended to most young 
speakers not accorded to the clergy. A clergyman would 
speak first in his schools. Difficulty of keeping the atten- 
tion of children. The modern story-teller, his materials, 
and the use of his art. Lectures adapted to school-children. 
MS. not to be dispensed with at once in preaching. Dif- 
ficulty of combining written with extempore matter. Ad- 
vantages of concluding a written sermon with extempore 
address. The first labour expended in acquiring the power 
of extempore speaking, repaid in after years .... 19 

Chapter V. Plan proposed requires labour. But not greater 
than should be bestowed upon a MS. previous to reading. 
Extempore speaking contrasted in its effects with reading 
from aMS. Archbishop Whateley's analogy capable of dif- 



i CONTENTS. 

Page 
ferent application. Extempore speaking influences the 
speaker before the hearer. Speaking and reading orators. 
Dr. Chalmers an instance of the latter. His reasons for not 
speaking extempore. Earnestness the real secret of success 
in all cases. Rant not earnestness. Time required in the stu- 
dy of MS. previous to reading or speaking. Evening gene- 
rally devoted to reading. Early rising — its advantages. Dr. 
Cumming's opinion as to the labour required for extempore 
speaking. Practice will lessen the labour of preparation. 
Preaching not to be compai'ed with ordinary speaking . 31 

Chapter VI. Details of preparatory study. The necessity of 
settling the exact point to be aimed at in speaking. Some 
speakers neglect this — hence tbey indulge in high nonsense. 
Mr. Addison's definition of such speaking. Principle applied 
to preaching. Advantage of a short text. Incident illustra- 
ting the necessity of speaking to the point. Sidney Smith's 
method of discovering whether a Sermon was understood. 
Sermons forgotten in a few hours — probable cause of this. 
Keeping close to one subject difficult. How the difficulty 
may probably be lessened. Superfluous matter to be 
avoided, however good in itself. A length which no 
speech should exceed 46 

Chapter VII. Anecdote showing tendency to repetition in 
extempore speaking. This avoided by the subject being 
well arranged. Advantage of arrangement to speaker 
and hearer 55 

Chapter VIII. Anecdote showing how a speaker may be 
misunderstood — especially by agricultural poor. Conse- 
quent necessity of plain speaking. Colloquial style inci- 
dental to speaking, an ornate style to writing. One coun- 
teracts the other in proposed plan of preparation. " Per- 
spicuity" and " sublimity " not incompatible. Why com- 
mon-place expressions should be avoided. Aristotle's 
remarks on the use of foreign words, and the length of 
sentences. Newman's description of the style of writing 
in vogue at the present day — well suited as preparatory 
for extempore speaking, but generally dangerous . . 58 

Chapter IX. Extreme accuracy often desirable in speaking. 
Memoriter speaking less difficult than supposed. Prej udice 
against it unfounded. Probable meaning of Cicero's phrase, 
" mandare memoriae." Disadvantages incidental to memori- 
ter speaking. Failure of memory while speaking. How to 
be met. Advantages of combining extempore with memo- 
riter speaking. Nature and extent of preparation for speak- 
ing — illustrated by example of Mr. Robertson of Brighton . 66 

Chapter X. Modesty essential in an orator. Timidity gives 
way before real feeling. Anecdote of a Vice-Chancellor 



CONTENTS. ' xi 

Page 
of Oxford. Feeling more effective than studied eloquence. 
The true source of confidence 73 

Chapter XI. A Scylla or Charybdis. Definition, origin, 
and remedy of spouting. Deliberation and self-possession 
indispensable to a speaker. Advantages of a distinct pro- 
nunciation. The management of the voice. The bass 
voice most difficult to control. M. Bautain's definition of 
a sympathetic voice. Its cause, origin, and effect . . 78 

Chapter XII. Absence of action arises from modesty of 
English character. Difference of the Italian orators. The 
effect of action. The action of Cicero and Demosthenes 
compared with that seen at the English bar — anecdote 
illustrative of. Origin of appropriate gesture. Why dif- 
ficult to be used in reading, or in memoriter speaking. 
Forced action like rouge on the cheek 83 

Chapter XIII. Lecturing a means of supporting many use- 
ful societies. Lecturing a preparation for public speaking. 
Lecturers in country parishes. A winter's experience of 
a weekly lecture. Assistance derived from village choir. 
Nature of subjects chosen. Readings from Shakespeare 
popular. Advantages of combining speaking with reading. 89 

Chapter XIV. Anecdote of Corregio. The orator must 
study in a kindred spirit. Industry versus genius. Vanity 
often claims for genius the results of industry. Lord 
Brougham's opinion as to the acquisition of oratorical 
power. The danger of fluent speaking. Fluency no evi- 
dence of power. Plato's preparation for speaking. Early 
training of Demosthenes. His difficulty in speaking. Pro- 
gressive workmanship of his finest passages. His aim to 
gain strength rather than beauty. Cicero a warning as 
well as an example. Mr. Pitt's early training. His first 
speech impromptu. His manner and style. His faults. 
Sheridan's early failure and ultimate success in oratory. 
Burke's description of his eloquence, and Lord Brougham's 
account of the means by which he attained his power. His 
faults. Nothing impromptu. The reading oratory of Dr. 
Chalmers. His power — incident to illustrate. Probable 
reason of his success. Greatest orators have not com- 
manded a uniformly attentive hearing. Anecdote of 
Burke 95 

Chapter XV. First principles of reading. Suspension of 
the voice distinct from a pause. Punctuation insufficient 
guide to the reader. Subordinate members of a sentence 
to be marked by suspension of voice. Archbishop W hate- 
ley's criticism upon Mr. Sheridan's method of punctuation. 
The proper suspension of the voice gives variety of tone, 
and relief to hearer and reader, and gives force to parti- 



xii CONTENTS. 

Page 
cular words. Reading poetry. Grouping words in reading. 
Difference between a slow reader and a drawling reader. 
Extract from Morell's grammar showing the grammati- 
tical grouping of words 113 

Chapter XVI. Punch's opinion of an emphatic reader. 
Definition of emphasis. Illustrated by ordinary conver- 
sation. Meaning varied by the tone of voice. A good 
reader not a " tine reader. Some sentences difficult to 
read. Small words to be subordinated. Reading the 
Scriptures — Blunt's rule for. Necessity of entering into 
the feeling as well as meaning of an author. Reading 
must be a spontaneous effort 12.< 

Chapter XVII. The perfection of art is nature. An art 
not learned at once. Absence of qualified teachers of elo- 
cution. Good critics at home. Educated Englishwomen 
generally good readers. Sir Walter Scott's definition of 
a good reader. The assistance which may be derived from 
a good criticism 138 

Physiology of Speech. Speech an acquirement — not a gift. 
The mechanism of speech. The musical notes of the voice. 
Pitch of voice regulated by size of building. Quick and 
slow echoes. Difficulties arising from them. Probable ori- 
gin of intoning. Speech probably a subject of study. The 
organ of speech. Speaking machines. Classification of 
alphabet. Complexity of action involved in speech. Fa- 
tigue of organs. Pauses in oratory — their duration and 
advantages. The pause in speaking analogous to pure 
white glass in old painted windows. Husting's speaking, 
or stump oratory. Rapid delivery of English orators. 
Stammering — its cause and gradual progress — Physiolo- 
gical explanation of. The falsetto 142 

APPENDIX. 

Mr. Kingsbury's Letter on cultivation of the voice for read- 
ing 171 

Letter from Lord , detailing his method of preparing 

his maiden speech in Parliament 179 

Anecdote illustrative of the power of natural speaking . 180 




THE SPEAKEE AT HOME. 
CHAPTER I. 

" Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 

Which we ascribe to Heaven." — Shakespeare. 

N audience of hearers is one thing, an 
audience of listeners is another. There 
is, perhaps, no class of men who have 
to realize this fact so often or so pain- 
fully as the younger clergy. A con- 
gregation gathered together to hear the words of one 
whose appeals and counsel have often before sent 
them away better and happier men is, from that very 
fact, a congregation of listeners ; but confront them 
with a smooth-faced youth of some four-and-twenty 
summers, and they become at once — the first stages 
of somnolence having been shown to be peculiarly 
sensitive of sound — hearers only in the most limited 
sense of the word. 

Nor is it the younger clergy only who have to 
complain of this listlessness on the part of their 
hearers ; from the very nature of the case, it is an 
evil which every preacher has more or less to con- 
tend with. Men go to the public meeting, to the 
courts of law, or to the Houses of Parliament, with 

B 



2 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

minds occupied with the subjects under discussion ; 
not so, however, with the congregations who gather 
Sunday after Sunday in our churches ; their minds 
are too often entirely preoccupied with subjects the 
very antipodes to those which are to be brought 
forward, and, therefore, the danger evidently is that 
their thoughts will still flow on uninterruptedly in 
the same channel. 

There is a story told of a shipbuilder in one of 
our large seaport towns, who, after attending service 
on the Sunday morning, remarked that he had 
planned out the whole of a new vessel which he had 
to commence, and that he was much pleased with 
many improvements that had suggested themselves 
to his mind, during the uninterrupted half hour of 
the sermon. On his return, however, on the follow- 
ing Sunday, after having heard a stranger, on being 
asked how he had got on with his ship-building, he 
declared that he had not been able to lay a single 
plank ! 

The first thing we have to do, then, disguise the 
fact as we may, is to break off the attention of our 
hearers from the matters which previously engross 
their minds. The question is, How is this to be 
done ? Experience says that the system in vogue up 
to this time has signally failed, and that a large body 
of the most highly-educated men in the country are 
positively unable to obtain a patient hearing for half 
an hour a week, on a topic which, for power of en- 
listing the attention and sympathies of all classes has 
no equal. 

Now the first requisite, that of gaining attention, is 
undoubtedly to be acquired by extempore speaking ; 
whether such speaking be good, bad, or indifferent, 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 3 

you cannot help listening. Let four persons be in a 
room together — A is talking to B, and C to D, and 
B wishes to hear what C is saying ; no matter what 
common-place A is talking, B cannot so entirely ab- 
stract his mind as to listen to C : this is ten-fold more 
the case in a public assembly, where hundreds are 
keeping silence for one man to speak. 

One reason of this is well given in the following 
passage from Archbishop Whateley's Rhetoric. 

" The audience are more sure that the thoughts 
that they hear expressed are the genuine emanation 
of the speaker's mind at the moment ; their attention 
and interest are excited by their sympathy with one 
whom they perceive to be carried forward solely by 
his own unaided and unremitted efforts, without 
having any book to refer to : they view him as a 
swimmer supported by his own exertions ; and in 
every such case, if the feat be well accomplished, 
the surmounting of the difficulty affords great gra- 
tification ; especially to those who are conscious that 
they could not do the same. And one proof that 
part of the pleasure conveyed does arise from this 
source is, that as the spectators of an exhibition of 
supposed unusual skill in swimming would instantly 
withdraw most of their interest and admiration, if 
they perceived that the performer was supported by 
corks, or the like, so would the feelings alter of the 
hearers of a supposed extemporaneous discourse, as 
soon as they should perceive or even suspect that 
the orator had it written down before him." 

All then, at first, is manifestly in favour of the ex- 
tempore speaker ; he has a listening and anxiously 
expectant audience. 

What, then, shall induce any one to forego such 



4 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

an advantage ? And what will induce even the mem- 
bers of a congregation themselves to say that they 
prefer to listen to a written sermon ? 

First, for the speaker himself 1 — he says he has 
not sufficient fluency of language ; secondly, subject- 
matter is apt to fail him ; thirdly, he has not the 
power of arranging his ideas into a clear and 
convincing argument ; fourthly, he is apt to say that 
which after more mature reflection he would have 
omitted. 

Many persons, who have never attempted to speak 
in public, decide that they have not sufficient fluency 
of language from the fact of their feeling a defect 
even in ordinary conversation. Now it may seem 
a curious assertion, but I believe that nearly all public 
speakers will affirm that they find it more difficult to 
express their ideas in one continuous flow of language 
in conversation than they do in a public address. 
Nay, many men have so felt their deficiency in 
attempting to explain their ideas to a single person 
previous to addressing a meeting, that it has been 
only the continued experience of this fact that has 
prevented their being disheartened by it. But this 
may be readily accounted for : — first, there is the ad- 
ditional stimulus arising from the sympathy of num- 
bers ; there is the absolute necessity of not shoving 
any hesitation, and the acquired habit of giving up 
the expression you want, if it does not come to hand, 
and substituting some other, though much less for- 
cible, in its stead ; again, in conversation men have 
generally to arrange their arguments as they go on ; 
new ideas are suggested or sought for whilst they 
speak ; they are not exactly decided what they want 
to say, nor are they familiar enough with their sub- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 5 

ject to have all the terms and expressions ready for 
use. Let them, however, be telling you something 
of which their whole mind is full, some piece of good 
news or some story of an injustice done to them, and 
there will be very little hesitation. Hence want of 
fluency in conversation, or in the first attempts at 
public speaking, is by no means prima facie evi- 
dence that a man will not eventually speak without 
the least hesitation. 

Secondly, subject-matter is apt to fail the speaker. 

This objection is perhaps the one which carries 
the greatest weight with it, and yet it may be shown, 
more than any other, to be based on a fallacy. It 
is founded on the supposition that the term ex- 
tempore refers to matter as well as to language. 
The lawyer has seldom much difficulty in speaking, 
because he has always fresh facts and fresh arguments 
which have to be conveyed to his hearers. If the 
speaker neglect to store his mind with new ideas 
and new arguments, the surprise would be if his 
subject-matter did not fail him. He is expecting to 
do that which no other class of persons ever has been 
able to do or simple enough to attempt. 

Another advantage of the mind being well stored 
with subject-matter is, that any slight hesitation or 
verbal inaccuracy is scarcely more observed than it 
would be in conversation ; and for this reason — that 
it does not indicate that a man is getting out of his 
depth, and at a loss what to say next; thus the 
hearer's mind is carried along by a connected ar- 
gument, and it is only when that connection seems 
to be endangered, that any nervousness is likely to be 
felt for the speaker. 

In answering the third objection, that the speaker 



6 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

has not the power of arranging his ideas into a clear 
and convincing argument, we must take into consi- 
deration the fact which experience amply bears out — 
that the majority of men are so educated, that, except 
on the most ordinary subjects, or on questions which 
have become matters of private or public discussion, 
they have no definite ideas at all; and it is only 
when they attempt to render their dim and sha- 
dowy conceptions sufficiently tangible to be grasped 
by the mind of another that they perceive any dif- 
ficulty ; they then find that their outline of thought 
is often in itself very incomplete, and the details 
either refuse to arrange themselves in harmony with 
it, or are in some places wanting altogether. 

If the truth of these remarks be admitted, it fol- 
lows that some plan will have to be adopted by a 
speaker to overcome this difficulty, inasmuch as he 
cannot possibly convey to others that which he has 
not clearly conceived himself. He will, I think, be 
obliged to have recourse to writing. By this means 
he will at once unravel the tangled skeins of thought 
which may have been lying in a confused and use- 
less mass in his mind. The first putting pen to 
paper will also be the signal for a host of new 
ideas to rally round him ; and, as he advances 
upon each division of his subject, fresh recruits 
will continually be pouring in — raw levies they 
may be, but requiring only care and subordination 
to constitute them valuable auxiliaries; camp fol- 
lowers and baggage there must be none ; all must 
be meant for service, " not yet mature" perhaps, 
" but matchless : " then, if the plan of the campaign 
be but skilfully laid, and execution be not wanting, 
not more surely would the exiled Prince, returning 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 7 

once more to claim his own, and, gathering strength 
at every step, advance to conquest, than would the 
orator, wielding at will the powers which his pa- 
tience had disciplined, make all difficulties fly before 
the onward march of his resistless argument. If, 
on the contrary, whether despising his adversary or 
overconfident in himself, he advances prematurely 
to the conflict, discomfiture must inevitably be the 
consequence — a discomfiture not the less galling 
because it is to be attributed solely to the fact that 
he has, wantonly or presumptuously, neglected the 
only proper means of ensuring a different result. 

The fourth objection, that a person will put for- 
ward much that maturer thought would have led 
him to suppress, can only arise from the abuse 
not the use of extempore speaking. If a man have 
acquired the power of keeping strictly to the sub- 
ject-matter that he has prepared, it is only possible 
for him to commit verbal errors. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 



CHAPTER II. 



" The wise and active conquer difficulties . 
By daring to attempt them ; sloth and folly 
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard, 
And make the impossibility they fear." — Kowe. 




fgg^HE first requisite for public speaking 
is the power of clothing thoughts pre- 
viously conceived in appropriate lan- 
guage ; the second, the power of weav- 
ing together a succession of thoughts 
into a harmonious whole. 

In the outset, then, we shall find that some men 
have greater difficulties to contend with than others. 
For instance, the man, some eight or ten years of 
whose life has been spent in studying the classics, 
will have gained an accurate and almost instinctive 
perception of the various shades of meaning ex- 
pressed by nearly synonymous words; and mdre 
than this, a continual habit of translating classical 
authors will have given him not only a ready com- 
mand of words, but an aptitude for arranging them, 
so as best to convey his meaning.* For those who 

* " The future orator must, by long study and repeated com- 
positions of a finished kind, handle and turn all expressions of 
language, various constructions of sentences, and endless com- 
binations of words, until they have become supple and well- 
trained instruments of the mind, giving him no longer any 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 9 

have not had this previous training, perhaps the 
most useful exercise will be to take up a book, 
and, choosing out words or expressions from it, to 
vary and modify them ; e. g. I wish — intend — 
purpose — think of — meditate — my desire, intention, 
or wish, is — my inclination leads me. Or again : 
hatred — dislike — loathing — disgust — aversion — 
distaste — disinclination to — objection to — prejudice 
against — antipathy to, &c. It may seem a childish 
exercise, but is none the less useful for that. 

Having secured the use of the right words, we 
then want them put in their right places in the sen- 
tence. This nothing but continual practice will 
effect ; an expression which in itself involves the 
idea of private study, not of public exhibition. 

The question arises, How is one to practise speak- 
ing with no one to speak to ? It may be answered 
by another question, How can a man learn singing 
with no one to sing to ? Even by singing to himself: 
— so a man may speak to himself. 

The best speakers tell us to abstract our minds 
from the individuals of the mass of people before us. 
Some even would conceive them to be so many 
blocks of wood ; and surely, therefore, tables and 
chairs will stand for an audience under these cir- 
cumstances. 

The next question is, What to speak about? 
Take up the first book that comes to hand, the more 
simple it is the better ; after reading a passage care- 
fully through two or three times, close the book and 
give your own version of it. 

trouble while actually speaking, and accommodating them- 
selves unresistingly to the slightest guidance of his thought." 
M. BAUTAIN on Extempore Speaking. 



10 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

It would be well to choose narrative in preference 
to argument to begin with, because, without calling 
the thinking powers into action, it gives the mind a 
clue quite sufficient to prevent it rambling. Besides, 
there is not the same feeling of unreality in narrating 
a fact that there is in actually addressing an imagi- 
nary audience. A more important point than some 
men may conceive ; as there will at first be an 
almost invincible repugnance, in many minds, to do 
anything which at the time seems so totally unreal ; 
anything of which, in fact, a man fancies he should 
be ashamed if any one intruded suddenly into the 
room in which he was speaking. 

I shall now dwell upon some of the difficulties 
which will meet the speaker at the outset. First and 
foremost, he will be apt to get into the middle of a 
sentence and then find himself utterly unable to com- 
plete it grammatically. Under these circumstances 
he will probably be inclined to adopt one of two 
alternatives, either he will go on and finish it in the 
best way he can,* putting grammar for the time on 
one side, or he will go back and begin the whole 
sentence again. The objection to the first plan is, 
that he will get into a fluent, but loose slovenly way 
of speaking, which will be much more readily formed 
than got rid of; and to the second, that he will ac- 
quire a habit of hesitation and uncertainty, which 
would make any man intolerable to listen to. 

In addressing an audience, a speaker must adopt 

* " Nevertheless, when once you have begun, you must 
rigidly beware of retreating by any break in the thought or 
in the sentence. You must go on daringly to the end, even 
though you take refuge in some unauthorized turn of expres- 
sion or some incorrectness of language." — M. Bautain on 
Extempore Speaking. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 11 

one- or other of these plans of getting out of such a 
difficulty ; but in practice it will be as well to re- 
member the old adage, that " prevention is better 
than cure." With this view the student may begin 
by reading so small a portion of the narrative that 
he will necessarily adopt as nearly as possible the 
construction of the author ; after which, by taking 
several sentences together, this similarity of order 
and expression, though still apparent, will become 
less marked. 

Thus, simple as the process may appear, the first 
lesson will have been taken in that accuracy of 
thought and expression which is generally supposed 
attainable only by our most gifted speakers, and not 
by them until after many years of comparative failure. 

I need hardly point out the works best suited for 
this kind of practice ; my only suggestion is, that a 
man should select such authors as he may desire to 
become acquainted with, so that, even if he should 
fail in making any progress as a speaker, his time 
will not have been wasted. Thus a university man 
with some examination pending would probably 
select works bearing on the history of his subjects. 
The theological student would take up Robertson 
or Milman, Blunt's " History of the Reformation," 
or some such work ; and I question if he will find 
any plan give him a more accurate knowledge of a 
subject than the one here suggested. 

Having by this means acquired some facility in 
giving expression to his ideas, the student would 
begin to take longer portions at a time, to render 
into his own words. Having carefully studied, say 
the greater part of a chapter of some work, he would 
write out a few notes, and speak from them ; they 



12 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

should be written out with care, and well studied, 
so as to form a sort of memoria tecknica y always 
present before the mind's eye of the speaker. 

I have thus far considered only the case of a man 
who should adopt this system by himself. I need 
hardly say how great an advantage and stimulus it 
would be for two or three to pursue some such plan 
together, or, at least, occasionally to compare notes 
and offer the suggestions of their own experience. 
The more fault each found with the other, the better ; 
no man notices his own peculiarities, however glaring 
they may appear to others, or, if he does, the chances 
are he looks upon them as anything but faults ; any- 
thing, however, which can be remarked upon, one 
way or the other, is always bad ; the mere fact of 
its having excited attention proves it — for the simple 
reason, that thesubjectis whataspeaker has toimpress 
upon his audience ; and it is only at the expense of 
his subject that he can direct attention to himself. 

To many the course of study I have proposed, 
though involving nothing more than half an hour's, 
or an hour's, regular daily practice for a few months, 
will seem to be mere childish drudgery. But what 
that is worth having was ever attained without 
drudgery ? How many years' labour, for instance, 
is represented by the single performance of the 
skilful musician ! * and yet what scales and exer- 
cises are to him, some such labour as is here sug- 
gested must be to the speaker. It is true, that, 
eventually, natural taste or ability may, in either 
case, render the want of previous training less pal- 
pable, yet without it the same degree of excellence 
will hardly, if ever, be attained. 

* Ruskin's Elements of Drawing. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 13 




CHAPTER III. 

" Modesty is to merit as shades to figures in a picture, 
giving it strength and beauty." — La Bruyere. 

NEED hardly say that such study as 
I have suggested, though it will give 
fluency, will not get rid of that painful 
nervousness under which every man at 
first labours, even in addressing some 
half-dozen persons. I suppose no man, who has 
arrived at that golden epoch in his life's history, his 
twenty-first birthday, is quite ignorant of the state 
of feeling I mean, — the palpitation of every nerve, 
the laboured respiration, the sense of extreme uneasi- 
ness, and the unaccountable longing for some oppor- 
tune interruption, are all expressions very inadequate 
to convey an idea of the mental and bodily torture 
often inflicted even by the random and jocular pro- 
posal that Mr. So-and-So shall make a speech. 

I remember once going to a wedding breakfast 
with a friend who knew that he would have to " re- 
turn thanks for the ladies." He had spent a great 
portion of the previous night in concocting the most 
elaborate speech, while, during his two or three hours 
of anything but sleep, wild visions of his coming 
ordeal had flitted ceaselessly before his mental vision. 
He was duly called upon — he rose, began, in an 



14 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

agitated and scarcely articulate tone of voice, to 
mutter something about the honour done him, then, 
with a half-uttered apology, sat down. Fortunately, 
like a true son of Mars, he soon showed that his 
facility in making his peace with the offended fair, 
severally, was fully equal to the difficulty which he 
had experienced in expressing his sentiments to 
them collectively. 

Are not, then, the antecedent difficulties so great 
as to make it seem almost absurd to say that nine 
out of ten educated men will eventually make fair 
speakers? I think not. So far from the natural 
diffidence, which shows itself thus painfully at first, 
being any lasting hinderance, we may assert, I think, 
that no man ever made a good, that is, a persuasive 
speaker, who was not more or less nervous at first. 
He is, at least, likely to be free from that boldness 
which is just as offensive as excessive nervousness 
is painful to the hearers. 

The question now is, How can a man overcome 
his first timidity ? Manifestly by making small be- 
ginnings — by gradually gaining skill) and with it 
confidence ; just as a child, in its attempts to walk, 
makes the first adventure across the floor of its 
nursery, assisted by every available means of sup- 
port, so must the future orator make his essay in 
some arena which shall be to him at once a nursery 
of thought, of language, and of oratorical skill and 
discernment. 

We should naturally point to our public schools 
as the first available training ground. Bacon says, 
rightly, " Custom is most perfect when it beginneth 
in young years, and education is but early custom. 
So we see in languages, the tone is more pliant to 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 15 

all expressions and sounds, the joints are more supple 
to all feats of activity and motions in youth, than 
afterwards ; for it is true, the late learners cannot so 
well take up the ply, except it be in some minds that 
have not suffered themselves to fix, but have kept them- 
selves open and prepared to receive continual amend- 
ment, which is exceeding rare." True, however, as 
the above is, it is hardly the whole truth ; there is 
often not only an inability for a study, or, at least, 
increased difficulty in " taking up the ply/' but there 
is & positive disinclination to the task. Look around 
amongst those who have attained to, at least, a very 
pleasure-giving proficiency in playing, singing, or 
drawing, and how many do we think would ever have 
reached that proficiency had the study been always 
optional, had they not been obliged to go through the 
elementary drudgery whilst under tutors and gover- 
nors ? Or, again, take the case of those brought up 
under the old public school system, and whose whole 
education has been confined to the classics, and how 
unable and unwilling do they prove themselves to 
" take up the ply" in mathematics ; and how small is 
the percentage amongst them of men deserving the 
name of mathematicians, compared with those edu- 
cated under the more modern system. Instead of 
taking up the study con amove, they soon find out 
the minimum allowance which will enable them to 
pass muster, and not unfrequently fail even in that. 
So, unfortunately, experience proves it to be with 
those who have neglected the study of reading and 
speaking. Not that I allow that in either case it 
ought to be so, but speak only to the fact that so it is. 
As, however, there is, I fear, very little chance of 
getting our schools to take this matter up for a long 



16 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

time to come, we must be content to begin with the 
universities. Many will answer that the Unions 
at Oxford and Cambridge* already afford ample 
scope for such exercises. True, they afford ample 
scope for the few inclined to make use of them at 
present; but, should the study and exercise of 
speaking once become popular, no one assembly 
could possibly afford, to even a small percentage of 
2,000 men, opportunities " magnis et cerebris exer- 
citationibus" which no mean authority has declared 
to be indispensable to form an orator. 

In those colleges where there are not already de- 
bating societies, any man, with the smallest amount 
of energy and tact, having his mind aroused to the 
importance of the subject, and stimulated by the 
encouragement which will, I doubt not, shortly be 
held out to such studies, would find little real diffi- 
culty in organizing a periodical meeting of some 
dozen or more friends as provident as himself of 
their future duties and interests. 

I would venture to make one or two suggestions 
with regard to such smaller debating clubs; first, that 
the subjects for discussion should be less ambitious, 

* Since writing the above I happened to be present at a 
harvest-home, at which a quondam schoolfellow presided. 
Though only of the same standing with the majority of can- 
didates for Holy Orders, he addressed upwards of 200 persons 
with the most perfect self-possession and fluency, and, what 
was more, spoke always simply, shortly, and to the point. His 
only training had been the habit of occasionally speaking at 
the Union at Oxford ; a fact which struck me as a very strong 
and practical illustration of the advantages to be derived from 
such societies. 

Should this chance to meet my friend's eye, he will not, I 
trust, think I have greatly outraged his kind hospitality in 
thus constructing him a peg to hang a moral upon. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 17 

and involving less preparation, than the class of sub- 
jects usually chosen. The end in view is not infor- 
mation, either on political or other subjects ; why, 
therefore, should a secondary object be allowed to 
defeat, or, at least, seriously interfere with the 
primary one ? The motive for choosing the class of 
subjects usually discussed would be excellent did 
it not defeat itself. To illustrate my meaning let 
me refer to the somewhat analogous case of the 
popular lectures in the present day. The main 
object of a popular lecture is to provide rational 
amusement for the masses of the people, and though 
Mr. Dry-as-dust may prepare one replete with use- 
ful information, he defeats this design when he has 
to deliver it to a half-empty room. 

Again, I would suggest that the subjects for dis- 
cussion should be so divided, or even multiplied, that 
instead of half the would-be-speakers being reduced 
to the lame remark, that they quite agree with the 
observations already made, there may really be some 
approximation to the " quot homines tot sententice" 
which is so necessary to give life and interest to any 
such discussion. 

One other suo-srestion I would offer, viz. that occa- 
sionally, instead of any subject being given for dis- 
cussion, some subject should be given for reading — 
some scene or scenes from Shakespeare, one or more 
of the letters of Junius, or better, perhaps, than 
either, some of the speeches of Cicero or Demos- 
thenes ; nothing would be so likely to improve the 
style of reading as the criticism which would thus be 
called forth. 

I need hardly remind most of my readers of the 
unanimous opinion of all classical writers, that the 
c 



18 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

practice of reading is one of the most absolutely 
essential parts of an orator's training. The reason is 
obvious ; every speaker knows the advantage, if not 
the absolute necessity, of gaining the power of com- 
bining memoriter with extempore speaking, as 
giving him the power of expressing his sentiments 
on points which require careful preparation and 
verbal accuracy — speaking from memory is, how- 
ever, only reading from the pages of a composition 
deciphered by the mind's eye, rather than by the 
actual organs of sight. If, therefore, a man is not a 
skilful reader, his transitions of style will be so 
marked and disagreeable as completely to spoil the 
effect of what he says, and thus cause him, in a great 
measure, to fail in the object he has in view. Those 
who have attended the debates in the House of 
Commons will remember one or two speakers who 
evidently have not made the " art of reading" a part 
of their oratorical study. 

Knowing that such debating societies as I have al- 
luded to are much on the increase at the universities, 
and feeling sure that it only requires attention to be 
called to these details of their management to secure 
many far more valuable suggestions than I can offer, 
I forbear to enter further upon the subject. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 19 




CHAPTER IV. 

" Aim at perfection in everything, though in most 
things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it 
and persevere will come much nearer to it than those 
whose laziness and despondency make them give it ap as 
unattainable." — Chesterfield. 

[E now consider the case of those who, 
having left the University and entered 
upon their various spheres of labour, 
are brought to realize for the first time 
their deficiency in this important branch 
of education. It would, however, be manifestly 
impossible to suggest any plan which should enable 
men gradually to obtain the skill and confidence 
necessary to speak on important matters in public, 
and which should, at the same time, be universally 
applicable. 

The man of property who may have to speak at 
public meetings or take part in county business, the 
statesman having the interests of a large constituency 
entrusted to him, the lawyer whose ambition rises 
above sitting silent and briefless, or the physician, 
who may often experience the inconvenience of not 
being able to express his ideas correctly and lucidly, 
will each and all find opportunities, incidental to 
their several positions, of making their first attempts 
at public speaking on a small scale. 

A few suggestions may be made to men so situ- 



20 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

ated. The first is, that they should never miss an 
opportunity of speaking, when they may have any 
legitimate excuse for so doing.* It is told of one 
of our great orators that he himself attributed his 
fluency of speech and readiness of reply, not to any 
laborious cultivation of his natural powers, but to 
the fact of his never having for years been present 
at any debate in Parliament without speaking, how- 
ever shortly, upon the subject under discussion. 

Lord Chesterfield's maxims on this subject are 
too valuable to be passed over. He advises every 
man not only to aim at correctness of speech in 
his ordinary conversation, but even to write the 
most common-place letter with care and accuracy ; 
showing that the habit thus acquired will, in time, 
make it difficult for him to avoid expressing himself, 
on all occasions, with elegance and propriety. 

The correctness here insisted upon in our ordinary 
conversation may at first sight seem likely to lead 
to pedantry and affectation ; but a moment's reflec- 
tion will be sufficient to enable us fully to appreciate 
the value of the suggestion. In the first place, very 
few persons, in casual conversation, seem to think 
that their having begun a sentence involves the 
least grammatical obligation to finish it. Let an or- 
dinary colloquial discussion between educated men 

* The cacoethes loquendi which pervades all ranks of our trans- 
atlantic kinsmen has been held up as a warning to those who 
would make rhetoric a more prominent subject of study in this 
country. Talking, however, is not the Englishman's forte ; and 
such are the antecedent difficulties which any one aspiring to 
speak in public will have to contend with, and so difficult and 
discouraging will his first attempts inevitably be, that there is 
little fear of any, but those who really take up the study con 
amore, ever becoming troublesome from their facility of ex- 
pressing their sentiments in public. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 21 

be taken down verbatim, and I question whether 
even the gifted possessor of a first class Govern- 
ment certificate would be able to parse and analyze 
it. A person of excitable temperament will doubt- 
less experience some difficulty in thus forcing him- 
self to complete a sentence when he sees that it 
will not quite express his meaning, or after some 
new or different idea has struck him ; but, until 
he has formed the habit of doing this in private, 
he is never likely to pass muster as a speaker in 
public. Another habit, which we are all more 
or less apt to fall into, is that familiarly known as 
" humming and hawing," whilst mentally groping 
for a word which most provokingly eludes us. 
What should we think of a person who, when wri- 
ting, should give utterance to similar sounds every 
time his pen stopped and he had to think how to 
express his meaning ? And yet there is no reason 
why a man should not think as quietly in speaking 
as in writing — the very pause which he is obliged 
to make will often add to rather than detract from 
the force of his words ; besides which, the calm- 
ness and deliberation which this involves is the very 
soul of good speaking, as without it a man has not 
even command over himself, much less of his au- 
dience. Until, in " the very torrent, tempest, and, I 
may say, even whirlwind of his passion, he can acquire 
and beget a temperance which may give it smooth- 
ness,"* he will never be able to avoid the " inexpli- 
cable dumb show and noise" which the above habit 
often involves. 

That Lord Chesterfield's remark also applies to 
the use on all occasions of appropriate words and 
* Hamlet. 



22 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

forms of expression is manifest ; but it is a question 
whether much of the significance of his admonition 
has not been lost by confining it entirely to elegant 
accuracy, which, after all, is a matter of secondary 
importance; for if the words immediately sug- 
gested to the mind are such as clearly convey the 
meaning of the speaker, they must be more appro- 
priate for ordinary conversation than any which 
cost him a greater effort. As Bacon justly ob- 
serves : — " Discretion of speech is better than elo- 
quence ; and to speak agreeably to him with whom 
we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or 
good order." By attending to such simple matters 
as the above, a man will both render his ordinary 
conversation agreeable and correct, and will find his 
intercourse with society become one of the best pre- 
parations for his efforts in public. 

We cannot, however, under any circumstances, 
expect a man to become even a moderately good 
speaker at once, or without long practice and ex- 
perience, and there would be no surer way of 
preventing men ever attaining to excellence in this 
particular than to refuse them a certain amount of 
indulgence as beginners ; or, in other words, to con- 
sider it presumptuous in them to speak at all, until 
they could speak well. It would be an absurdity 
only equalled by that of the somewhat over-anxious 
mother who refused to let her son go into the water 
until he should have acquired the art of swimming. 
Accordingly, this indulgence is' given to most men, 
and they are not considered presumptuous if their 
first efforts at public speaking are not crowned with 
complete success. But, unfortunately, there is a 
very large body of men from whom this indulgence 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 23 

is necessarily, though perhaps too arbitrarily, with- 
held. I mean the clergy. They must begin well, 
or never begin at all — the slightest hesitation, the 
least verbal or grammatical inaccuracy, the smallest 
wandering from the subject, will call down upon 
them the severest criticism for presuming to do that 
for which they are not fully qualified ; and yet there 
is no class of men to whom a facility of speaking is 
so absolutely indispensable, not only in the church, 
in the cottage, and in the sick room, but on number- 
less public occasions, where they are obliged to be 
present, and are invariably expected to have some- 
thing to say. How then is the clergyman to begin 
extempore speaking? 

Separated from the opportunities of that com- 
panionship in labour which lightens it of half its 
toil, with no one whose advice he can ask, or upon 
whose experience he can rely, met at the outset 
by difficulties which have too long been considered 
insurmountable, how shall a young clergyman set 
to work to remedy this defect in his education ? 
Let him make his first attempt at extempore speak- 
ing in his schools. Inclination and duty will alike 
lead him occasionally to address the children, though 
only for a few minutes ; and there is no reason why 
such opportunities should not be multiplied and 
turned to good account for the purpose of which we 
are now treating. The great thing will be for a man 
not to despise his audience, children though they 
may be, but to think over what he is going to say, 
and try to speak as correctly as he would wish to 
do on any more public occasion. Should he succeed 
in arresting the attention of his audience, for even 
five or ten minutes, he may congratulate himself on 



24 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

his success; for, though it may be tolerably easy 
by discipline to keep a large body of children from 
actual playing or whispering, it requires a real in- 
terest to be created to keep them from that perpe- 
tual motion so characteristic of childhood. 

Unfortunately, the more artificial state of society, 
and the precocious literary tastes of its juvenile 
members, have quite driven out the time-honoured 
custom of " story-telling" and scenes once familiar 
as household words to us all are fast becoming matters 
only of family tradition. It is probable that the 
most thorough-going advocate of early mental dissi- 
pation would be somewhat startled now-a-days to 
hear the eager accents of entreaty conveying the old 
request, " Oh, do tell us a story I" Though as the 
rapidly and vociferously repeated chorus of" Oh, 
do ! " burst simultaneously from many voices, it may 
be questioned how far his good nature would even 
now leave him an entirely free agent in the matter. 
Those whose dignity does not rise up in arms at the 
bare idea of such a proposal might occasionally find, 
in this best of all old-fashioned customs, a very 
agreeable method by which to test their powers of 
weaving together a connected narrative, and of 
expressing themselves in that simple and graphic 
language, which, whilst it is the only medium of 
communication with the uninstructed and untrained 
mind of childhood, is also the purest and most elegant 
which can be used in addressing a more sedate and 
educated audience. " Robbers or fairies " will doubt- 
less still lay claim to a prominent place in the bill of 
fare on such occasions ; and to any one who is not 
enamoured of the high-pressure and utilitarian sys- 
tems now in vogue, they will prove a fertile and 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 25 

unfailing resource. Without, however, having re- 
course to these now almost exploded themes, the 
infinite variety of subjects comprised in the present 
cycle of juvenile literature, and really made patent 
to the most childish intelligence, will give ample 
scope to the modern story-teller to exercise his art. 
History alone, particularly if derived from such 
sources as Herodotus, Froissart, or Macaulay, and 
supplemented by an acquaintance with such writers 
as Shakespeare or Sir Walter Scott, will prove a 
mine in which the most inveterate story-teller might 
perpetually quarry without the least fear of exhaust- 
ing its rich veins of amusement and information. 
But perhaps the best and most unfailing resource of 
all will be the narratives of the Old Testament his- 
tory. The mere modernising of the language in 
which they have been previously read, and the filling 
in the details, from a knowledge of the manners and 
customs of the people, and the local peculiarities of 
the places described, will frequently render stories 
with which the youngest child is perfectly familiar 
as interesting as the wildest inventions of fancy or 
the most startling incidents of ordinary life. If, be- 
sides these methods of rendering the Scripture nar- 
ratives fully appreciable by children, -the actual 
names of persons and places should be sometimes 
suppressed, or even changed, the interest excited and 
the glad smile of intelligence which will gradually 
dawn upon one face after another, as they begin to 
guess the story really being told to them, will amply 
repay the little additional trouble which such a plan 
may involve. Add to this that the Bible will thus 
be made to hold its right place in the estimation of 
children ; it will no longer be regarded as a book of 



26 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

dry didactic study, but as an unfailing treasure-house 
out of which things new and old may perpetually 
be looked for ; and, more even than this, it will no 
longer, as is too often now the case, be associated 
in after life with reminiscences the most painful, 
but with scenes which the memory will cherish most 
fondly and part with last. 

But, to return to the curate and the village school- 
room, I would only further remark that, for a sort of 
school-room lecture, of about ten minutes' duration, 
the small packets of reward books, of which so many 
are published, will supply extremely useful materials. 
They embrace a great variety of subjects, and the 
information conveyed being always in a short simple 
form, a few minutes' careful study is sufficient to 
enable any one, who has acquired the most limited 
powers of speaking, to give the substance of them in 
an intelligible and interesting form. 

Having, in the course of a year or two, acquired, 
by these means, a tolerable amount of self-possession 
and fluency, a man would probably begin by de- 
livering his weekly school-room or other lectures 
without the aid of his manuscript, and would then 
gradually adopt the same plan in the pulpit — I say 
gradually, because few persons will be found equal 
to making so great a change as it involves at once. 
Whatever plan the particular circumstances may 
lead each individual to adopt, he has to bear in mind 
that his congregation, and not himself alone, have to 
be considered — that, on the slightest sign of hesita- 
tion, there will always be some, who, though they 
may be total strangers to him, will be sitting in an 
agony of nervousness lest he should " come to a 
stand-still ; " if for this reason only, it would seem 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 27 

advisable to begin extempore preaching by carefully- 
preparing an extempore conclusion to his written 
sermon. The preacher " coming to a stand-still" 
will then be an event by no means so much dreaded 
by the congregation ; and the feeling that he can 
conclude at any moment will of itself give him con- 
fidence ; besides which he will then be more full of 
his subject, and therefore more earnest and natural. 

I quite allow that this plan has its disadvantages, 
which, if not understood, may discourage a man at 
the very outset. Nothing is more difficult than 
suddenly to cease from reading the pages of a written 
composition and to commence speaking — the former 
must be more or less mechanical, while the latter 
requires the whole mind to be concentrated on the 
subject in hand. Thus I suppose the best speakers can 
hardly interpolate a written sermon with occasional 
short extempore periods, still less could they alter 
its subject as they go on ; the possessing such power 
would be the best proof of a man having a real gift 
for extempore speaking. And yet how many clergy- 
men, who read their sermons week after week, will 
tell you that. they often introduce any matter which 
strikes them at the moment. Truly, may we say, 
that if in our country villages there are many " mute 
inglorious Miltons," in our country parsonages there 
are many " mute inglorious" Chrysostoms ! 

It is the fact of most men having experienced the 
great difficulty of thus interpolating their written 
sermons with extempore matter that prevents them 
attempting extempore speaking altogether. Every 
speaker would tell them that the first three minutes 
during which he thus speaks costs him a greater 
mental effort than the whole half hour or more which 



28 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

succeeds. It is the " getting under weigh" which is 
difficult. What must it be, then, when a man has 
to " get under weigh" some half-dozen times, as he 
does when he is altering a sermon as he goes on ? 

In favour of thus concluding a sermon without 
reference to a manuscript, we might also argue, on 
the old adage, that " all's well that ends well," and 
that an earnest practical exhortation will bring home 
the main part of the subject which might before 
have been little appreciated by his hearers. Those 
who have ever adopted this plan will understand 
the effect which the change from reading to speaking 
irresistibly produces upon a congregation ; the in- 
stantly riveted attention, and the silence of expecta- 
tion, showing that the first point towards making 
some impression upon them has thus been gained. 
Another advantage of this method is, that it allows 
a man to begin extempore speaking gradually ; he 
need only speak for two or three minutes after he 
ceases reading, or he may go on to any length which 
time and circumstances admit. 

Again, this plan will be found more especially 
useful to those who, from having to prepare two or 
more sermons every week, feel it to the advan- 
tage of their congregation that they should make 
more or less use of any published sermons which 
they may have by them. In reading such there 
must always be a certain amount of formality and 
coldness, the effects of which will be greatly coun- 
teracted by the preacher summing up the whole sub- 
ject in his own words, bringing it home to his hearers 
by a plain, earnest appeal, and thus enforcing, and 
practically applying, that which would else have 
fallen heavily and without point upon his hearers. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 29 

In venturing thus to urge those who have but 
recently entered into Holy Orders not to allow the 
first difficulties which lie in their path to prevent 
their making a resolute effort to acquire this most 
valuable of all aids in their ministerial work, I 
cannot but remind them how amply the labour of 
one or two years will be repaid through a whole 
lifetime; their labour will not only be eventually 
lightened, but will be productive of an infinitely 
greater amount of good. In the actual preparation 
of sermons the labour will be lightened, because it 
will enable them to make use of these same sermons 
without the least fear of their losing effect by repeti- 
tion ; and yet the labour of preparing them again 
will be very slight, resolving itself into merely read- 
ing them over and thinking out some portions with 
care and accuracy. 

This will be of infinite assistance to them, either 
at a season when their services are increased, or 
when they may be called upon to address those who 
do not form a part of their regular congregation. 

It would, however, be impossible to enumerate the 
advantages to himself and to others which may ac- 
crue from a clergyman's being able, on all occasions, 
whether in season or out of season, to speak forcibly 
and to the point. I can only ask whether the mag- 
nitude of the advantage ought not to make us all 
feel that we have scarcely done our duty until we 
have tried every available means of acquiring this 
power, and can certify to our own consciences that 
the want of it is to be attributed to positive incapa- 
city on our own part, and not to any want of dili- 
gence or perseverance in the study of it. Let it only 
be remembered that the gift of speech is a talent com- 



30 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

mitted to the Christian minister's charge to occupy 
for his Master's service, and then, if we refuse to use 
every available means of improving that talent, we 
cannot escape the conclusion that in that particular 
we must be counted as unprofitable servants. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 31 




CHAPTER V. 

Demosthenes " neither wrote the whole of his orations, 
nor spoke without committing part to writing." — Plut. 

MAN is now supposed to have invested 
a capital of some months' or even years' 
labour, the returns of which will, we are 
convinced, under any circumstances, 
amply repay him ; but though the ac- 
tual power of speaking may have been thus acquired, 
the preparation for each particular exercise of it will 
still involve a considerable amount of labour ; and 
any one who may have been induced to take up the 
study in order to save himself trouble will probably 
be greatly disappointed in the results which he 
obtains. 

The plan now suggested is to write the so-called 
extempore sermon, and to study it carefully previous 
to its delivery. The main objection will be the time 
that would necessarily have to be given up to carry- 
ing this into effect. Supposing a man has one or 
two sermons to preach every week, to the same con- 
gregation, can he, without neglecting parish work, 
find time not only for the actual amount of writing 
required, and for the reading necessary to keep pace 
with so exhaustive a process, but also for the final 
preparation here suggested ? 

In the first place, it must be remembered that 



32 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

to deliver a sermon even from a manuscript always 
requires a laborious preparation of two or three 
hours at least,* in addition to the time spent in writ- 
ting it, and that, too, in the case even of the very- 
best readers. Unless a man is content to give up 
the power and effect which he undoubtedly gains by 
looking towards those to whom he is speaking, he 
must have gained so accurate an acquaintance with 
his subject that the eye may readily take in the 
whole of a sentence at a glance, and that, too, during 
the momentary pauses which he makes in the deli- 
very. That this is one secret of the power of many 
of our most effective preachers few probably will 
deny ; by this means they approach indefinitely 
near to the manner of extempore speaking, while 
they secure all the advantages of having the manu- 
script before them. 

Unfortunately, experience proves that the vast 
majority of men are not able to carry out this 
method, that there is something in being tied down 
to the exact letter of that which was written in the 
quietness of the study, which makes the whole opera- 
tion merely mechanical, and effectually checks the 
earnestness which the speaker really feels, but can- 
not give way to from the fear of becoming embar- 
rassed between what he wants to say and what is 
written before him. He feels that if he only mis- 
places a single sentence, or anticipates a single idea, 
it may quite disarrange what is to follow ; f whereas 

* Since writing the above, I have been told, by one of our 
most effective preachers, that I have understated the time 
which he considers absolutely indispensable for studying a 
written sermon. 

f We have seldom found sufficient stress laid upon the man- 
ner in which a sermon is committed to paper. If it is to be 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 33 

the man who is depending upon himself alone can 
throw himself entirely into his subject, and, with 
his mind full of it, and with the one object of per- 
suading his hearers possessing him, he can hardly 
fail of being earnest and real himself, and making 
that reality felt by others.* 

If, however, a preacher can deliver his sermon as 
well, and, feeling the same earnestness, believes that 
he makes a greater impression upon his hearers by 
a written sermon than he could by speaking without 
it, he is, indeed, much to be envied ; but let him not 
despise those who are less gifted, nor misunderstand 
their motives in adopting different means to attain 
to the same end. The real point at issue is not 
which is the better — to preach with or without a 
manuscript — but how can a man best enlist the at- 
tention, convince the consciences, and persuade the 
hearts of his hearers. To the man who has found 
out the means of doing this already the present in- 
quiry will personally be one of slight interest, inas- 
much as he is not likely to give up a substance for 
that which may seem to him a shadow. 

read with ease there should not be more than eight lines in a 
page, and all the prominent words should be scored under so 
as to catch the eye at once. 

* " The habit of trying to repeat words as our own, (and 
which, perhaps, originally were our own,) but which, having 
been half forgotten, do not come directly from the living 
sources of thought and feeling at the time when they are 
spoken, induces an unnatural and artificial kind of tone and 
manner which is rarely met with anywhere but in the pulpit, 
and which tends at once to deprive sound, sense, and argu- 
ment of half their power ; to make use of speech in this way 
is to work with a broken disjointed instrument, and the 
hearers remain, they perhaps scarcely know why, uninterested 
and dissatisfied — such a plan cannot fully answer the great end 
we have in view." — Sermon by the Rev. T. Shann. 
D 



34 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

It may not be uninteresting here to endeavour to 
ascertain to what the very different effects ordina- 
rily produced by those who speak with, and by those 
who speak without, a written composition are to be 
attributed. Allusion has already been made to Arch- 
bishop Whateley's analogy, illustrating the interest 
excited by the fact of the speaker being evidently 
unsupported by any extraneous aid ; it seems, how- 
ever, very doubtful whether we can consider this 
feeling as anything more than an occasional ac- 
cident of extempore speaking, and whether the anal- 
ogy holds good to the extent to which it is often 
urged, inasmuch as any feat of skill necessarily 
loses its power of exciting interest by its frequent 
repetition. In the case, therefore, of a person con- 
tinually addressing the same audience this feeling 
will soon exist in so slight a degree as to be valueless 
in accounting for the phenomena often witnessed. 
Surprise at the audacity of the speaker may in- 
deed be kept alive by his betraying any signs of 
being unequal to carry through the task which he 
has undertaken, but the interest thus excited will 
be by no means a pleasurable one, nor one to which 
persons would often subject themselves. To reverse 
the above analogy, it would be akin to the sensation 
which would be felt on perceiving that the imagined 
adept in the art of swimming, having been used to 
be supported by " corks," had miscalculated his 
powers, and was fast sinking for the want of them. 

The real cause of the difference alluded to seem3 
to lie in the fact that true eloquence, under whatever 
circumstances it may be brought to bear, influences 
in the first instance the speaker rather than the 
hearer ; and its effect upon the latter is .in no way 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 35 

determined by the question whether the orator is or 
is not dependent upon a manuscript before him. 
When the deep feelings of the heart have been 
stirred there is no place found for such superficial 
criticism, and the cause is entirely lost in the effect ; 
if, therefore, a man can be found who can write as 
he would speak, and in delivering the written matter 
can divest himself of the frigid manner, the ill-timed 
or forced gesture, and the conventional tone usually 
inseparable from such an effort, that man will doubt- 
less wield at will the minds of his hearers, with a 
power as resistless as that of the most consummate 
natural orator. As might be expected, from the 
greater difficulties which have to be surmounted, 
we shall find that for ninety-nine speaking there 
will not be more than one reading orator, (if I may 
use such tautological and paradoxical terms,) at any 
given time. The late Dr. Chalmers stood out 
almost alone in the latter character ; not only did he 
read his sermons, and that too with great rapidity 
and the broadest accent, but often traced every line 
with his finger as he went on, using little or no ac- 
tion, and that little by no means such as would have 
seemed likely to add force to his words. And yet, 
with the aid of a voice not naturally harmonious, 
but singularly under control, and varying with every 
shade of thought and feeling, he could, by his intense 
heart-stirring earnestness, so enchain a congregation, 
so rivet their attention to his subject, and so entirely 
lead them captive at will, that any reflection as to 
the means by which it was all effected was utterly 
impossible at the time, while it was a matter of too 
little moment to be thought of afterwards. And so 
it will be always ; no matter when, where, or how 



36 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

exerted, earnestness will ever sound its " open se- 
same" to the human heart. In its stirring tones of 
reality there will ever be an inspired eloquence, 
which, like the winged messenger of ruder times, 
rising high over every impediment and borne upon 
unseen winds, will carry its message home with swift 
and unerring certainty. 

I shall in a later chapter, when instancing the 
examples of those who have attained to the highest 
excellence in oratory, mention one or two incidents 
which will abundantly prove that no speaking orator, 
if I may still be allowed the term, ever surpassed Dr. 
Chalmers in the power of gaining a hearing from 
all classes of the people ; at the same time I cannot 
but remark that he himself fully appreciated the ad- 
vantages of extempore speaking. The expressive 
words of his own journal will best show his real and 
conscientious motives for not adopting that method 
of preaching. He writes — " Extemporised an hour 
and twelve minutes. Felt as if repeated too much — 
but Sandy declares it to be more impressive than 
the usual way ! " Two months subsequent to this 
we find the following : — " Wrote notes of a sermon, 
and am to make another trial at the extemporising." 
He remarks, on another occasion, that he was seldom 
able to get beyond the first or second division of his 
subject, and could rarely, if ever, make his whole 
discourse complete in the given time. So fully 
alive, however, was he to the great disadvantages 
of being bound to the letter of his manuscript, 
that we find, throughout his career, he was in the 
habit of writing on separate slips of paper and com- 
mitting to memory the passages by which he espe- 
cially trusted to bring home his subject. These 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 37 

passages he left out of his manuscript sermons and 
marked an " &c." in the gaps thus occasioned. 

In his Journal we find such records as the fol- 
lowing : — 

October 4. Employed in writing speech on Mr. 
Feme's case. 

October 5. Almost finished my speech on Fer- 
rie's business. 

October 6. Committed great part of my speech 
to heart. 

As, then, earnestness is the essential element in 
every true orator's success, so we conceive that the 
general absence of it is the main cause of the com- 
parative failure of those who endeavour to produce 
the same effects by artificial means. At the same 
time, it must be clearly understood that this term 
is not applied to the mere impulse or excitement 
of the moment of delivery. Genuine earnest- 
ness will be as different from mere " rant," as the 
foolhardiness of the drunkard is from the undaunted 
bravery of him who goes out knowingly to meet 
death face to face. It will differ as much from a 
mere passing ebullition of feeling as the rude clamor 
of an excited mob differs from the stern purpose of 
the patriot, who, feeling that the long-looked for 
and decisive moment has arrived, casts away every 
thought of further preparation, and throws himself 
into the struggle, trusting to God and the justice of 
his cause for victory. And we may add, that, just 
as that patriotism will be but an empty name which 
does not lead a man to put all thoughts of self 
on one side, and to give up his time, his thoughts, 
and, if needs be, life itself, for his country's cause, 
^o that earnestness which has not previously led a 



38 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

man to concentrate all his energies on the work he 
takes in hand will be little more than mere bom- 
bastic parade ; it may be mighty to dazzle or to 
amuse, but it will never be mighty to the pulling 
down of strongholds. 

Granting, then, that much labour is necessary, 
under any circumstances, for thus delivering a ser- 
mon effectively, if it can be shown that the same 
amount of study would enable a man to deliver it 
without his manuscript, one of the main objections 
to the plan suggested falls to the ground. We will 
allow two hours as the time required to study a 
written sermon previous to delivering it, and ano- 
ther hour for the additional care required in revis- 
ing and for the occasional re-writing of portions of 
the manuscript. 

Are, then, three hours sufficient for a man to make 
himself so far master of that which he has previously 
written as to deliver it without his manuscript ? I 
answer, that not only is this time amply sufficient, 
but that after the practice of some few months it 
will be more than sufficient, and that there will, 
therefore, eventually be a positive saving of time in 
addition to the other advantages of this plan. How 
great this saving will be in condensing, amplifying, 
re-preparing, or adapting to altered circumstances, 
sermons already preached, has been already sug- 
gested. 

By those who are, as yet, only looking forward to 
their ministerial work, and who have still their 
habits to form, one suggestion, bearing very forcibly 
on the present division of the subject, will not per- 
haps be taken in bad part. 

Many men, partly from college habits, and partly 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 39 

from wishing to devote the greater portion of the day 
to parish work, will probably count upon the even- 
ings as the best time for preparing their sermons. 

Now, in the first place, a man who has been really 
at work all day will be tired and sleepy in the 
evening, and anything he writes under those cir- 
cumstances will clearly evidence the exhaustion of 
his own mind, and will probably have a decidedly 
sedative influence upon those for whose benefit it 
is composed. He will not only — if I may so ex- 
press it — speak stupidly and let his hearers go to 
sleep, but will speak narcotically and send them to 
sleep. On the other hand, if, getting the better of 
his weariness, he becomes thoroughly interested in 
his subject, it will probably be only at the expense 
of a night's rest, and an aching head in the morning. 
Besides which, the evenings are necessarily too 
much exposed to interruption ever to allow of any 
settled plan of work being formed for them. 

The question, therefore, seems to resolve itself into 
this — whether a man will be content more or less to 
neglect his duty, or whether he will make an effort 
to break through the habit of lying in bed some two 
or three hours more than any purposes of health can 
possibly require ; whether, in plain language, he can 
make up his mind to get up at six o'clock, set a light 
to his own fire, boil his own kettle, get his breakfast, 
and settle to work by seven o'clock. Granted that 
for six or even twelve months this requires a very 
considerable effort, yet the advantages of the habit, 
when once acquired, will amply compensate for the 
temporary inconvenience. 

The difficulties which many will conjure up on 
considering the feasibility of this plan, as applied to 



40 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

their own cases, are such as from their nature may 
be readily surmounted. The main point will be for 
a man to let his movements depend, as far as possible, 
upon himself alone ; and, above all, not to try a com- 
promise as to time with the other inmates of his house- 
hold, not only because they will be just as well where 
they usually are at that hour of the day, but, be- 
cause, as a rule, they will not be punctual to any 
time which may be fixed ; add to this, that the family 
breakfast-table, even without its newspaper and let- 
ters, generally involves a considerable sacrifice of 
time, and is seldom a good preparation for a morn- 
ing's work. 

The advantages of these early hours of study it is 
impossible to over-estimate ; a man will be secured 
against the temptation to hurry over the preparation 
for his Sunday duties. So far from neglecting 
parish duty, he will go every day to his work with 
renewed zeal and energy, w T hile, by thus daily en- 
deavouring himself to substantiate in practice that 
which he preaches, he will be at once forming his 
own character and guarding against one of the most 
insidious evils to which he can be exposed — that of 
allowing " sermon- writing" to become a merely in- 
tellectual, if not mechanical operation. 

I say nothing of the fact of this arrangement 
leaving the evenings more or less disengaged for 
relaxation, casual reading, for seeing those whom it 
may be impossible to gain access to at any other 
time, and last, though not least, for those claims 
which society occasionally makes even on a curate ; 
though all these are advantages which will re-act 
much more practically than might be supposed 
upon the preparation of the Sunday's discourse. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 41 

The man who speaks without a knowledge of the 
world, of the opinions, feelings, and habits of those 
he addresses,* is like a sentinel in the dark firing 
his piece at random at an enemy whose approach 
he hears without being able to distinguish his form, 
or to tell exactly from what quarter he is advancing ; 
veteran soldier and skilful marksman as he may be, 
his discharge, under these circumstances, will be less 
likely to prove effective than if, in broad day-light, 
and with a clear view of the advancing foe, the 
rawest and most unskilful recruit had pointed the 
weapon. 

It would be very easy to quote authorities to show 
that the labour necessary for extempore preaching 
has not been over-estimated. Pr. Cumming writes 
thus : — 

" I do not," he says, " think reading sermons is 
best ;f I like myself best to hear them read, because 
I am often best satisfied with them ; but I am con- 
vinced that the living speaker, speaking the thoughts 
that are in his soul, in language furnished to him at 
the moment, does speak with a power and demonstra- 
tion and effect, notwithstanding his little inelegances, 
his periods not so well rounded, his sentences not 
so perfectly finished for critical ears, with which you 
never can be addressed from sermons merely read 
from manuscripts. I am no fanatic ; I am sure you 
will acquit me of that ; but I know the best thoughts 
I have ever spoken to you ; and the thoughts I know 

* Dr. Johnson remarked of one of the greatest of English 
writers : — " He had read with critical eyes the important 
volume of human life, and knew the heart of man from the 
depths of stratagem to the surface of affectation." 

t Dr. Cumming on Instant Duties, p. 386. 



42 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

have been most blessed to you are the thoughts that 
never occurred to me in my study, but that have 
sprung up in my heart at the moment I have been 
speaking, suggested often by that attentive face that 
looked to me there, and by that riveted eye thatlooked 
upon me here, and by that silent listening that was 
perceptible elsewhere. I am persuaded, therefore, 
that God speaks to His ministers in the pulpit, and 
there through His ministers to the people. I do not 
say that to read one's sermons (because good men do 
so, greater and better men than I) is to dishonour 
the Holy Ghost ; but I do say in my case, and in 
my experience, it would be parting with an element 
of power and a means of good which I would not 
resign for the whole world. But do not suppose that 
by extemporaneous preaching I mean going into the 
pulpit and saying what comes uppermost. Though 
I do not write my sermons, it costs me hard and 
weary thinking, often followed by many a sleepless 
night, to prepare them. It does not follow that be- 
cause a man does not write his sermons that there- 
fore he does not study them. It is quite possible to 
write in the most extemporaneous manner, as it is 
to speak in the most extemporaneous manner ; ser- 
mons that are written may be the most random shots, 
sermons that are not written may be the results of 
the deepest study, meditation, and prayer." 

If it were possible to obtain from some of the best 
speakers of the day an opinion as to how far extem- 
poraneous speaking is a natural or an acquired power, 
also as to the previous preparation generally involved, 
and the use made of memoriter speaking, such opin- 
ions, grounded, as they would be presumed to be, 
upon actual experience, would go far, we believe, to 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 43 

do away with the idea that great mental powers or 
superior gifts of speech are indispensable to the 
orator, and to confirm the opinion that the absence 
of these most desirable qualifications may, in a great 
measure, be made up for by perse verance and hard 
work.* 

It should not, however, be forgotten, by way of 
encouragement in this work, that the labour involved, 
in the preparation necessary to enable an ordinary 
man to speak with ease to himself and advantage to 
others, will continually be diminishing as his memory 
and powers of arranging his ideas gradually im- 
prove. He will also gradually be enabled to dispense 
with committing any portion of his subject entirely 
to memory, inasmuch as he will find himself more 
and more able to express his exact meaning, in lan- 
guage coming to him at the moment, without the 
least fear of his being misunderstood. Many men 
would also, doubtless, very soon dispense with writ- 
ing fully upon their subject, and trust to arrange 
their ideas by making copious notes. This will an- 
swer very well for illustration, narrative, &c ; but 
for the general matter writing will have this advan- 
tage — that when a subject is once fully written it 
is off the mind, and a man has nothing more to do 
than to read it over carefully an hour or two be- 
fore delivering it ; whereas, if he trust to arrange 
the subject in his head, it will not only require a 

* That in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom is 
especially true in those matters in which no two persons are 
likely entirely to agree. The author would, therefore, feel 
much obliged to any persons interested in this subject who 
would make any practical suggestions on the above or other 
points, stating whether such may be embodied in any future 
edition of this work. 



44 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

continual mental effort, but some of the most for- 
cible points which occur to him, at one time or ano- 
ther, will probably be forgotten before the time 
comes for making use of them. 

With regard to preaching, men are apt to compare 
it with ordinary speaking. The lawyer or the states- 
man has continually fresh facts to deal with — facts 
which in themselves at once suggest fresh argu- 
ments to the mind, and keep them there when sug- 
gested ; provided, therefore, they have acquired the 
power of expressing ideas previously conceived in 
their minds in appropriate language, they need but 
very little preparation for speaking. Let them, how- 
ever, have to speak several times, on the same sub- 
ject, before the same audience, and if, on each suc- 
cessive occasion, they expect to command an equally 
attentive hearing, to that they may have received on 
the first, they must have elaborately prepared new 
arguments, fresh illustrations, &c. 

The preacher, however, has to speak, not several 
times only, but always upon the same subject, and 
the more closely he keeps to the one great object of 
all his teaching, the more he finds that he has no 
new facts to deal with ; that all his arguments have 
already been urged in some shape upon his hearers, 
and that he will need a more than ordinary amount 
of thought and study to work out practical deduc- 
tions from these truths, and thus to give to his ar- 
guments that amount of originality and pointed ap- 
plication which is indispensable to gaining a hearing 
and awakening conviction. 

If, however, a preacher expects to be able to 
deliver a sermon, especially to an educated congrega- 
tion, with as little preparation as he would address 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 45 

a meeting on some subject the details of which he 
knew himself to be much better acquainted with 
than his hearers, he must not be surprised if his 
presumption gives just offence to many, and evokes, 
upon the system he adopts, a censure which would 
more correctly be applied to his own abuse of that 
system. 



46 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 




CHAPTER VI. 

" Sit quidvis simplex duntaxat et unum."- Horace. 

ICERO recognizes the following quin- 
que quasi membra eloquentice : — the 
selection and arrangement of the sub- 
ject-matter, the clothing it in suitable 
language, the charging the whole upon 
the memory, and lastly, the delivery of the speech 
so prepared with appropriate gesture and elocution.* 
The course to be adopted by a speaker, as by a 
traveller, is, first, to decide what point he wishes to 
make for, and then to set about finding the readiest 
means of arriving at it. Many speakers resemble 
the men of an exploring party, in a newly settled 
country, who have no particular object in view ; as 
long as they do but get over a certain amount of 
ground, they are careless as to the direction they may 
have taken, and are not much surprised if they find 
at last that they have been walking in a circle, and 
have arrived at the very spot from which they ori- 
ginally started : on the other hand, a good speaker 
may be compared to a native of the same country, 
who, striking unhesitatingly into the right path, 

* Invenire quid dicas, inventa disponere, deinde ornare ver- 
bis, post memorise mandare, turn ad extremum agere ac pro- 
nuntiare. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 47 

never once pauses or turns aside until he attain the 
object of his journey. 

Absurd as it may seem, experience would lead us 
to believe that a large number, even of those who 
speak after considerable preparation, never clearly 
decide in their own minds the exact purpose which 
their speech is to effect ; the consequence of which 
is, that, having neither method nor concentration, 
they fritter away, in slight skirmishes, and it may 
be in trivial successes, opportunities and resources 
which, if rightly used, would have enabled them at 
once to strike a decisive blow. 

Such men generally excel, more or less, in that 
style of speaking which Mr. Addison has humour- 
ously denominated " high nonsense." " Your high 
nonsense," he says, " blusters, and makes a noise, it 
stalks upon hard words, and rattles through polysyl- 
lables. It is loud aiid sonorous, smooth and perio- 
dical. It has something in it like manliness and 
force, and makes one think of the name of Sir Her- 
cules Nonsense in the play called the Nest of Fools. 
In a word, your high nonsense has a majestic ap- 
pearance, and wears a most tremendous gait, like 
zEsop's ass clothed in a lion's skin."* The pecu- 

* " Low nonsense is the talent of a cold phlegmatic temper, 
that in a poor dispirited style creeps along servilely through 
darkness and confusion. A writer of this complexion gropes 
his way softly amongst self-contradictions and grovels in ab- 
surdities." 

" Hudibras has denned nonsense (as Cowley does wit) by 
negatives. ' Nonsense,' (says he) ' is that which is neither 
true nor false. These tw© great properties of nonsense, which 
are always essential to it, give it such peculiar advantage 
over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either ans- 
wered or contradicted. It stands upon its own basis like a 



48 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

liar characteristic of this " high nonsense" he shows 
to be that the speaker without really having any 
meaning seems to have it, and so imposes upon the 
hearers by the range and sound of his words, that 
they are apt to fancy they signify something ; a de- 
ceit, he says, which is only to be detected by those 
who lie under this delusion asking themselves what 
they have learnt from it. Let a speaker, however, 
only apply this test to himself, and throughout the 
whole course of his preparation keep prominently 
before his mind the lesson which he really wishes to 
convey, and he will hardly fail to see, at a glance, 
what portions of his subject-matter are superfluous, 
and what parts he may with advantage enlarge 
upon. 

It struck me, at the time, as a very significant fact, 
that when twelve able and gifted men of our Church 
were selected to conduct the first series of Exeter 
Hall services, every one of them chose for his text 
a simple question ; eleven of the twelve, a question 
contained in some half-a-dozen words, while the 
twelfth preacher selected a passage so familiar that 



rock of adamant, secured by its natural situation against all 
conquests or attacks. There is no one pi ace about it weaker than 
another, to favour an enemy in his approaches. The major 
and the minor are of equal strength. Its questions admit 
of no reply, and its assertions are not to be invalidated. A 
man may as well hope to distinguish colours in the midst of 
darkness, as to find out what to approve and disapprove in 
nonsense ; you may as well assault an army that is buried in 
intrenchments. If it affirms anything, you cannot lay hold 
of it ; or, if it denies, you cannot confute it. In a word, 
there are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies 
and perplexities, in an elaborate and well written piece of 
nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of 
school-divinity.' " 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 49 

it would be next to impossible for it to escape the 
memory of any of his hearers.* 

Most persons try to remember the text, and just 
in proportion as they have a clear recollection of it, 
and a definite idea of its meaning, so will they be 
able to remember the general scope of a sermon. 
They have it in a portable shape, and can expand it 
at will, while the chances are, that, if a long text 
has been selected, many of the congregation have 
never throughout the whole sermon got a clear 
notion of what duty or what truth the preacher is 
endeavouring to enforce." 

I once had the following criticism of a very in- 
telligent working man retailed to me. Speaking of 
the sermons I had preached for two or three Sun- 

* Bishop of Carlisle: — "What saith the Scripture?" — 
Rom. iv. 3. 

Rev. W. Cadman : — " Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? " 
Jer. xiii. 23. 

Rev. C. Molyneux :— " What think ye of Christ ?"— Matt. 
xxn. 42. 

Rev. Dr. Miller. — " And Nicodemus answered and said 
unto him, How can these things be ? " — John in. 9. 

Rev. J. C. Ryle : — " For what shall it profit a man if he shall 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul ?" — Mark vni. 36, 37. 

Dean of Canterbury : — " Why will ye die ?" — Ezek. xvin. 
31. 

Rev. R. Burgess: — " What must I do to be saved?" — 
Acts xti. 30. 

Rev. Dr. McNeile :— " Who then can be saved ? "—Matt. 
Xix. 25. 

Dean of Carlisle: — " Understandest thou what thou read- 
est ?"— Acts xvin. 30. 

Rev. Hugh Stowell : — " How long halt ye between two 
opinions?" — 1 Kings xvin. 21. 

Rev. W. W. Champneys : — " How are the dead raised 
up?"— 1 Cor. xv. 35. 

Bishop of Ripon : — " How shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation ?" — Heb. n. 3. 
E 



50 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

days, he had said : — " Well, sir, I never can make 
out just what he's a driving at ! " On looking over 
the criticised sermons, I confess that I was myself 
quite unable to tell really what I had been " driving 
at." It is told, if I remember right, of Sidney 
Smith, that he was in the habit of reading his ser- 
mons over to some of his own household, and of 
altering any passages which they did not seem 
clearly to understand. If something of the same 
plan were adopted by a speaker, to discover whether 
a person of average intelligence understood fully, 
not so much particular words or passages, but the 
general drift of the whole discourse, we might ex- 
pect that the results would be highly conducive to 
the edification of many a congregation. If the poor 
were but honest enough to tell us so, or were not 
afraid of being thought wanting in intelligence, how 
often would they pass some such criticism as the 
above upon what w r e may have regarded as our most 
powerful appeals or most lucid explanations ; nay, 
even amongst the more educated classes let any one 
try the experiment of asking his friends — say at no 
later period than the Sunday evening — what has 
been the subject of the morning sermon, what truth 
was explained or w r hat lesson enforced, and the 
answer, in the vast majority of instances, will clearly 
prove that they have not only been unimpressed 
with the subject, but utterly ignorant of the general 
purport of that which they have heard. That this 
need not, and should not be the case, may be proved 
by the fact that a sermon powerfully setting forth 
some one great lesson of Christian truth will often 
be remembered for months or even years ; most of 
us probably remember some particular sermon of 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 51 

which we could give a general outline, even after the 
lapse of many years. Surely, then, if the same truth 
is enforced with only moderate power, it should be 
retained in the memory for some few days at least. 

Now one remedy for the evil to which I have al- 
luded is to be found in the choice and the manner 
of applying the text. We often hear a text chosen, 
the different parts of which, taken separately, lead 
the preacher to dwell upon two or even three en- 
tirely different subjects in one discourse, thus con- 
fusing the minds of his hearers by the variety of 
ideas suggested to them. Though the mere words 
of the text, if remembered, may enable them to trace 
back each argument, and they may even have ad- 
mired the closeness with which the preacher ap- 
parently adhered to the subject-matter selected, yet 
in a few hours there will be no definite impression of 
what they have heard left upon their minds. Their 
senses may have been regaled, but their consciences 
will not have been touched ; they will not go away 
musing within themselves upon any one great truth 
of Revelation, or aroused to the importance of any 
one duty of practical holiness. They have had no- 
thing definite given them to believe, nothing to do.* 

The man who shall strive after the simplex et 
unum in his style of preaching will have both to 
curb his fancy in writing and also to bestow infi- 
nitely more labour upon it. He must often be con- 
tent to lose in apparent brilliancy that which he 
gains in solid strength — he must often sacrifice the 
variety of colour and charm of contrast for the sober- 
ness of the single hue. He will be seeking to work 

* The above refers, of course, to preaching as distinct from 
expounding scripture. 



52 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

conviction in the few rather than admiration in the 
many. To some he will often appear tedious. 
The lovers of mere mental excitement, expecting to 
have a panorama of new and striking ideas passed 
in rapid review before them, will not willingly be 
made to dwell upon the details and less easily ap- 
preciated beauties of some one truth, even though it 
had better claims to be considered a master-piece 
both in subject and in treatment. 

Again, more labour will have, to be bestowed 
upon the composition, because to deal fully with 
one subject requires much more thought than to 
treat three or four cursorily ; every man knows in- 
tuitively that he is likely to fall short of matter ; and, 
that he may convey the idea to his hearers, that he 
is simply trying to say all that can be said upon 
the subject 5 there can be no surer way of tiring an 
audience than this. 

To obviate these difficulties, a preacher would 
probably arrange the materials of his sermons 
some time beforehand, continually reading anything 
which may bear upon them, and writing down under 
their several heads any ideas which may occur to 
him.* Should he then interfere with his previous 
arrangement, it will only be when some fresh sub- 
ject has struck him very forcibly, and he is anxious 
not to let the first vivid impression of it pass from 
his mind. In this way many of the crude ideas 
which first suggest themselves in connection with a 
subject will be seen to be such. A man viewing 

* We are told of some celebrated writer who would rise and 
strike a light and note down any thought which had struck 
him, even in the middle of the night, rather than run the risk 
of its escaping from his memory before the morning. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 53 

them more db extra will often be saved from ex- 
pressing that which he would afterwards be glad to 
recall. Add to this, that, as I have before sjiown, 
after he has once written, however concisely, upon 
a subject, it will from that very fact have assumed a 
more definite shape in his mind. His previous con- 
ceptions amplifying themselves, and fresh thoughts 
continually occurring, he will be less likely to 
weary his hearers by a perpetual recurrence of the 
same cycle of ideas. This, then, seems the first 
thing for the preacher to aim at — to select a text 
which shall be easily remembered, and shall embody 
the leading ideas of the lesson to be enforced 5 how- 
ever varied the arguments, illustrations, and ex- 
amples, they will all, like the spokes of a wheel, come 
to one centre, and be within one circumference. 

Passing over many other points connected with 
the choice of subject-matter, as having no peculiar 
bearing upon the preparation for extempore speak- 
ing, a remark may be made upon a point which, 
however obvious, is too often neglected — the abso- 
lute necessity of rejecting everything which may 
tend to make an address exceed the proper limits, 
and which may not be absolutely necessary to the 
argument. As long as a man is keeping close to 
his point, and manifestly leading his hearers on by 
as rapid steps as possible, he will be listened to with 
patience and generally with interest ; but, if during 
any part of his harangue he has indulged in tropes 
and figures, similes or anecdotes, which have oc- 
cupied the time without materially hastening the 
denouement, the pleasure with which they may 
have been at first received will be more than coun- 
terbalanced by annoyance at the loss of time they 



54 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

have occasioned ; — an annoyance akin to that felt by 
a traveller, who, having been seduced from his direct 
route by the beauties of the surrounding scenery, 
arrives at his destination an hour too late for dinner. 
As to the time for which a speaker may generally 
calculate upon retaining the attention of his hearers, 
if it is allowable to hazard a rule which might, I 
believe, be of universal application, and tend to pre- 
serve that amity of feeling which ought ever to 
exist between a speaker and his audience, we should 
say, as Aristotle said of the length of a sentence, that 
a speech should neither be too long nor too short ; 
that it will be too short, if it be shorter, too long, 
if it be longer, than the hearers anticipated. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 55 




CHAPTER VII. 

Tantum series juncturaque pollet." — Horace. 

CLERGYMAN having taken some 
pains to draw from an aged parishioner 
an opinion as to the effect which his 
extempore sermons produced upon her, 
received the following answer : — " Oh, 
sir, I do like to hear you speak like that ; for if I 
can't tell what you say the first time, you always 
say it three or four times over, and then I do ! " 
Now the secret of this man's success was that he 
kept to his point ; his fault, that he did it clumsily ; 
and this can only be avoided by the speaker having 
grasped a clearly arranged plan in his own mind. 
He must have all the divisions and subdivisions of 
his subject clearly before him ; and however closely 
these may bear upon the main point, they must each 
be represented by a distinct idea in his own mind ; 
everything which is said should have its own ap- 
propriate place in some division of the whole plan, 
and that very appropriateness will serve to fix it 
upon the memory, and prevent its intruding itself at 
the wrong time. 

So much has been written upon the rhetorical 
arrangement of a subject that it would be presump- 
tuous to attempt to offer any further suggestions. 



56 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

All that is wished is to show that, if such ar- 
rangement is of the greatest advantage in ordinary 
writing, it is positively indispensable in the prepara- 
tion for extempore speaking. The advantages of 
this clear arrangement of a subject are well explained 
in the following passage from " The Spectator :" — 
" Irregularity and want of method are only sup- 
portable in men of great learning or genius, who 
are often too full to be exact ; and, therefore, choose 
to throw down their pearls in heaps before the rea- 
der, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. 
Method is of advantage to a work both in respect to 
the writer and the reader. In regard to the first, it 
is a great help to his invention. When a man has 
planned his discourse, he finds a great many thoughts 
rising out of every head, that do not offer themselves 
upon the general survey of a subject. His thoughts 
are at the same time more intelligible, and better 
discover their drift and meaning, when they are 
placed in their proper lights, and follow one another 
in regular series, than when they are thrown to- 
gether without order or connection. There is 
always an obscurity in confusion, and the same 
sentence that would have enlightened the reader in 
one part of a discourse, perplexes him in another. 
For the same reason, likewise, every thought in a 
methodical discourse shows itself in its greatest 
beauty, as the several figures in a piece of painting 
receive new grace from their disposition in the pic- 
ture. The advantages of a reader from a methodical 
discourse are correspondent with those of the writer. 
He comprehends everything easily, takes it in with 
pleasure, and retains it long. Method is not less 
requisite in speaking than in writing, provided a 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 61 

man would talk to make himself understood. I, 
who hear a thousand coffee-house debates every day, 
am very sensible of this want of method in the 
thoughts of my honest countrymen. There is not 
one dispute in ten which is managed in those schools 
of politics, where, after the three first sentences, the 
question is not entirely lost. Our disputants put 
me in mind of the skuttle-fish, that when he is un- 
able to extricate himself, blackens all the water 
about him till he becomes invisible. The man who 
does not know how to methodise his thoughts has 
always, to borrow a phrase from the dispensary, a 
barren superfluity of words ; the fruit is lost amidst 
the exuberance of leaves.'' 

Without this method his previous preparation 
will, in fact, be of little or no avail to the speaker, 
and he will probably himself become hopelessly in- 
volved in the labyrinth which he had prepared for 
others. 



58 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

" Indoctus quid enim saperet, liberque laborum, 
Rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto ?" — Horace. 

,OME few weeks back, speaking to one 
of the wealthy citizens of this metro- 
polis, I was induced, by some remarks 
he made, to dwell upon the origin of 
the difference of classes in England. 
To explain away his preconceived ideas, I noticed 
the effects of the Norman Conquest, and the conse- 
quent distinction between the Norman and Saxon 
races. How far I succeeded in making myself un- 
derstood will appear from the following answer — 
given in a somewhat hesitating voice, and after due 
deliberation : — " Has the Norman race got any- 
thing to do with the Derby ? The nobility certainly 
seem to take a great interest in it ! " Alas, for my 
theory, and the hopeless confusion of ideas to which 
it had given rise ! 

If, then, the fact of his education having been 
totally neglected could render a shrewd, intelligent, 
and most prosperous man of business so incapable 
of following an explanation, however awkwardly 
given, of a simple historical fact, what must be the 
case with the uneducated poor — especially with the 
poor in agricultural districts, where their occupa- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 59 

tions and associations have all a tendency to cloud, 
rather than to enlighten, the intellect ? 

It is quite possible, then, that a speaker may 
select and arrange his subject-matter well, and yet, 
by adhering to a style of writing which education 
has rendered natural to him, may fail in making the 
slightest impression upon his hearers. The mean- 
ing of sentence after sentence may be lost to them, 
partly by the mode of expression, and partly by the 
use of words, which, however familiar to an edu- 
cated person, may yet convey no meaning at all to 
the great majority of every mixed audience. 

Undoubtedly, the great danger of extempore 
speaking is that a man may degenerate into a mere 
common-place mode of expression — into what is 
generally termed a colloquial style; on the other 
hand, most men in writing are apt at first to be 
caught by the tinsel of mere high-flown language : 
so that it seems a fair inference that a man who is 
writing and speaking alternately will most readily 
acquire the happy medium. 

In making this remark, however, upon the style 
of writing, we must, I think, allow that, judging 
from some of our best authors, a somewhat ambitious 
mode of expression seems almost a necessary step in 
the progressive acquirement of a pure and elegant 
diction. 

It would be easy to quote numberless instances 
of men of great eminence in authorship in whose 
earlier works there is to be found the greatest turgi- 
dity and pedantry of expression, while, as their judg- 
ment and taste have become more matured, they have 
gradually lost the bombast, but retained the dignity 
and perspicuity which had before been overlaid ; 



60 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

whereas, on the other hand, many who have at first 
written in simple and dignified language have de- 
generated at times into a common-place style, just as 
offensive to good taste as the opposite extreme. If 
the correctness of these remarks be allowed, it fol- 
lows that as the style of writing has a natural ten- 
dency to accommodate itself to ordinary every-day 
forms of expression, rather than to rise above them, 
we should not, as beginners, be too careful to avoid 
a style which, from being slightly verbose, might 
justly give offence in writers of greater experience. 

There is a paper in " The Spectator," on the 
character of Heroic Poetry, which is so singularly 
in point that I shall offer no apology for transcrib- 
ing it. It comes not only with the sanction which 
its place in the great model of English writing gives 
it, but it is in strict and almost verbatim accordance 
with the maxims given by the greatest of all classic 
authorities. It runs thus : — 

" It is requisite that the language should be both 
perspicuous and sublime ; in proportion as either 
of these two qualities are wanting the language is 
imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most neces- 
sary qualification, insomuch that a good-natured 
reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the 
grammar or syntax, where it is impossible for him 
to mistake the poet's sense.* E. g. 

1 God and his Son except, 
Created thing nought valued He nor shunn'd.' 

Miltok. 

* So Horace : — 

' Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis 
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, 
Aut humana parum cavit natura.' 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 61 

" If clearness and perspicuity were only to be con- 
sulted, the poet would have nothing else to do but 
to clothe his thoughts in the most plain and natural 
expressions; but, since it often happens that the 
most obvious phrases, and those which are used in 
ordinary conversation, become too familiar to the 
ear, and contract a kind of meanness by passing 
through the mouths of the vulgar, a poet should take 
particidar care to guard himself against idiomatic 
ways of speaking. Ovid and Lucan have many 
poornesses of expression upon this account ; as 
taking up with the first phrases that occur without 
putting themselves to the trouble of looking after 
such as would not only have been natural, but also 
elevated and sublime. Milton has but few failings 
of this kind, of which, however, you may meet with 
some instances, as in the following passages : — 

A while discourse they hold, 



No fear lest dinner cool; when thus began,' &c. &c. 

' Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling 
The evil on Him brought by me, will curse 
My head, ill fare our Ancestor impure ; 
For this we may thank Adam.'' 

ft The great masters in composition know very well 
that many an elegant phrase becomes improper for 
a poet or an orator when it has been debased by 
common use. For this reason the works of ancient 
authors, which are written in dead languages, have 
a great advantage over those which are written in 
languages that are now spoken. Were there any 
mean phrases or idioms in Virgil and Homer they 
would not strike the ear of the most delicate modern 
reader so much as they would that of an old Greek 



62 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

or Roman, because we never hear them pronounced 
in our streets or in ordinary conversation. 

" It is not, therefore, sufficient that our language 
be perspicuous, unless it be also sublime. To this 
end it ought to deviate from the common forms and 
ordinary phrases of speech. Our judgment will 
very much discover itself in shunning the common 
roads of expression, without falling into such ways 
of speech as may seem stiff and unnatural. Among 
the Greeks, iEschylus, and sometimes Sophocles, 
were guilty of this fault. Among the Latins, Clau- 
dius and Statius ; and among our own countrymen, 
Shakespeare and Lee. In these authors the affec- 
tation of greatness often hurts the perspicuity of the 
style, as in many others the endeavour after perspi- 
cuity prejudices its greatness." 

Applicable as the above is to all speaking, it seems 
to apply specially to preaching. 

There is a very perceptible tendency in the pre- 
sent day to identify practical preaching with a com- 
mon-place familiar mode of expression. Thus we 
find that many right-minded persons would rather 
forego the advantage which they allow to belong to 
a plain, practical exhortation, than submit to have 
their sense of propriety shocked by the flagrant 
breaches of good taste which such preaching is then 
made to involve. How far this evil is a necessary 
consequence of plain speaking the above quotation 
will, I think, enable us to judge. 

Aristotle, in the few last chapters of his " Poetics," 
gives many useful and practical rules on this sub- 
ject ; and his advice, as to the use of foreign words 
or of expressions appropriated from their more or- 
dinary meaning, will be current in any age. If, 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 63 

he says, they are used sparingly, and with discri- 
mination, they give sublimity and majesty to a 
discourse; otherwise they make the whole barba- 
rous. Homer, he says, often introduces expres- 
sions peculiar to the idioms of the neighbouring 
states; and thus, he observes, some of his most 
forcible allusions would only be understood by his 
contemporaries. The pleasure which such terms 
give to the ear he shows to be analogous to the 
gratification which the sight of a stranger gives to 
the eye, and the authority with which a stranger's 
opinion often impresses the mind. 

With regard to the grouping of words into sen- 
tences, nearly all that can be said on the subject 
may be embraced in one or two rules from the same 
author — that a sentence shall neither fall short of, 
nor exceed, the length which its construction would 
lead the hearer to expect ; and, again, that it should 
be so simple in its structure, that an ordinary person 
would have no difficulty in reading, pointing, and 
understanding it. 

The following description of the style of writing 
peculiar to the present day will, I think, more es- 
pecially apply to the case of those whose writing is 
preparatory for extempore or memoriter speaking. 

" The good writer of the present day always 
seems to write under a degree of excitement. He 
is full of his subject, and his attention is directed to 
what he shall say, rather than to the manner of con- 
veying his thoughts. His expressions have an air 
of originality about them. There is no toilsome 
selection of words, no laboured composition of sen- 
tences, no high-wrought ornaments, but the words, 
and sentences, and ornaments, are such as most na- 



04 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

turally and obviously present themselves to the ex- 
cited mind. If one word is more expressive of his 
meaning than another, he does not fear to use it, 
though it may never have been introduced to such 
good company before. If a form of sentence occurs 
to him which is more easy and idiomatic, he adopts 
it, and stops not to inquire whether it end in a 
trisyllable or a monosyllable. If a figurative ex- 
pression strikes him as pertinent and happy, he uses 
it, and leaves it for others to inquire whether it be 
found in the numbers of ' The Spectator,' and have 
the authority of classical writers for its support. In 
short, instead of imitating the style of any other 
writer as his guide, he has a style of his own, and 
observes the maxim of Horace in the literal use of 
the term : — 

' Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri ! ' " * 

The style here described is peculiarly suited for 
extempore speaking, not only because slight verbal 
inaccuracies are less easily detected than in a written 
composition, but because a greater freedom and 
breadth of thought and language are required in 
speaking than writing ; what seems to be pedantic 
or wildly hyperbolical in an address to a single per- 
son is perfectly appropriate when addressed to a 
large number of persons — -just as in a picture, 

" Erit, quae si propius stes, 
Te capiet magis, et quaedam si longius abstes." 

It may be a question, however, whether there is 
not great danger in adopting this style of writing 
for general composition, and whether any revision 

* Newman's Rhetoric/sixth edition, p. 203. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 65 

will get rid of the evidence of a careless and hasty, 
though impassioned, manner of writing. 

If, therefore, this style of composition be adopted, 
a3 peculiarly appropriate for extempore speaking, 
the inevitable effect of it must be counteracted by 
greater care in writing for other purposes. After 
all it is his taste which a man must try to improve, 
and this he can only do by an accurate study of 
good writers. 



66 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 




CHAPTER IX. 

" Massillon, when asked which of his sermons he thought 
the best, replied, < That which I recollect the best.' " 

Life of Massullon. 

t N these days, when a man is liable to 
have every word he utters taken down 
and commented upon, and to be held 
answerable for particular expressions, 
just as much as for the general drift of 
his argument, there are few persons, probably, who 
will doubt the great advantage of being able to pre- 
pare verbatim what may have to be said on any par- 
ticular occasion. If this be so under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, much more will it be the case with the 
Christian minister, who must necessarily deal with 
subjects that require the very greatest accuracy of 
expression, and who is continually in danger of 
giving a wrong impression of his meaning, or of 
falling below the dignity of the subjects which he 
has taken in hand. 

To pass over many more obvious cases in which 
this power of memoriter speaking will be required, 
in the case of metaphor or simile it will be espe- 
cially useful ; as, if a speaker does not wish to run 
the risk of getting hopelessly confused, or of very 
inadequately expressing his meaning, he must clearly 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 67 

foresee where such figures of speech will lead him, 
and how far he may press them into his service; 
besides which, in many of the most expressive ana- 
logies taken from everyday life, the greatest care is 
required to prevent the language used calling up 
ideas not at all suited to the subject they are in- 
tended to illustrate. 

That memoriter speaking is at first both difficult 
and laborious we do not for a moment deny ; but 
we assert that it is much less so than those who 
may have given it up on the first attempt can well 
imagine. There is not, perhaps, a greater differ- 
ence between the ease and rapidity of touch in a 
finished musician, and the absurd awkwardness of 
the same person during the first few weeks of his 
novitiate in the art, than there is between the diffi- 
culty which a man will first experience in commit- 
ting written matter to memory, and the facility 
which he will acquire by a few months' practice. 

There are, however, great and we cannot but 
think unfounded prejudices against memoriter speak- 
ing; the unreality and deception which it is sup- 
posed to involve can only exist where the audience 
are unacquainted with the most rudimental princi- 
ples of the orator's art. Many men, if they have 
thought upon a subject, cannot help speaking more 
or less from memory, particularly those who, if I 
may so express it, have acquired the habit of think- 
ing in sentences. Just, in fact, as a person who has 
thought over an important letter will know, almost 
word for word, what he intends to write before he 
puts pen to paper. Seeing, then, it is impossible to 
draw any line, and to say where the supposed de- 
ception finds place, the objections, if admitted at all, 



68 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

would hold good as regards all preparation for speak- 
ing — which is manifestly absurd. 

It is not intended by these remarks to advocate 
memoriter speaking as a general rule, but rather to 
show that the power of so speaking is a necessary 
part of an orator's training ; nor, indeed, is it to be 
supposed that in the expression (mandare memoriae) 
quoted above, Cicero implies that an actual verbatim 
acquaintance with the matter prepared is requisite, 
but rather that the general scope of the whole should 
be clearly comprehended; that, in fact, the orator 
should study it not as a mathematician would the 
formulas of his science, but rather as a painter 
would study the general features of a landscape. 
We might go further and show that, just as in 
studying a landscape a day or even an hour will be 
of more avail to a skilful artist than a week to an 
amateur, so in the study of his written compositions, 
one hour, after a fair amount of practice, will do 
for the speaker what six would hardly have accom- 
plished without it. Although, at first, he has to 
study every part in all its details, he very soon learns 
to seize intuitively upon the prominent ideas and 
even words, trusting to their subordinates being dic- 
tated by the inspiration of the moment, and naturally 
grouping themselves around them. Like the artist, 
he knows that though great accuracy may be re- 
quired in bringing out some particular parts of his 
subject, yet that his taste will generally be shown 
not so much by a servile imitation, as by the bold- 
ness with which he conceives and reproduces the 
whole. 

Without considerable skill in the art, speaking 
entirely from memory has a very bad effect. A 






THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 69 

man does not speak with any freedom, point, or 
force ; the idea of a formal recitation is so irresistibly- 
conveyed to his hearers that, though his words will 
be listened to, they will never come home like the 
words of an earnest, natural speaker ; his eloquence, 
however great it may be, will suffer as much from 
his defective oratory as a fine song from a faulty 
execution. His whole delivery will be bad, there 
will be no light or shade, but one tone and manner 
throughout : argument, narrative, threatening, re- 
buke, encouragement, will all be the same ; while 
the occasional sudden transitions from highly ora- 
torical language to mere ordinary remark will often 
be so abrupt and unexpected as entirely to take off 
the mind from the matter to the manner. Such a 
speaker is like a bold but unskilful rider crossing 
an enclosed country ; there is none of the quiet ease 
and grace, the steadiness, nerve, and masterly hand- 
ling of one more practised ; he is all excitement, 
and hurries on to the end with rash impetuosity, 
not only without the slightest appreciation of the 
ground he traverses, but often labouring as much at 
the smallest obstacles as when he should gather 
himself together for some bold, decisive, and crown- 
ing effort. 

Again, the memoriter speaker generally rejoices 
in long poetical quotations and laboured combina- 
tions of words, the effect of which is particularly 
unfortunate, being sufficient of itself to keep up the 
feeling in the hearer that he is merely listening to a 
formal recitation. If the speaker is not aware of 
his faults, they are liable to become habitual ; so 
that even when he is really speaking on the im- 
pulse of the moment he will fall into the same style, 



70 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

and thus lose the effect generally incidental to ex- 
tempore speaking. 

One difficulty attending memoriter speaking is, 
that the attention is likely to be concentrated upon 
words and periods rather than upon the whole sub- 
ject, so that often on coming to the end of a sentence 
the speaker will have lost the thread of his argu- 
ment, and there will be a total blank presented to 
his mind. He will be much in the same position 
as that often indicated in conversation by the fami- 
liar exclamation : " What in the world was I talk- 
ing about ! " This difficulty must be met either by 
copious notes, or, better still, by the power of " ex- 
temporising/' which, enabling him to enlarge for a 
few moments on the last idea which he has put for- 
ward, will give him time for thought, and infallibly 
recall to his mind the lost thread of his argument. 

Under these circumstances, the great thing will be 
for the speaker, having anticipated the probability 
of such an occurrence, to retain perfect self-posses- 
sion, and not to let his audience perceive that he is 
at a loss ; inasmuch as if he once makes his hearers 
nervous, their nervousness will infallibly react upon 
himself, and thus increase his difficulty tenfold. The 
best way, however, to avoid falling into such a 
dilemma at all will be for the speaker to abandon 
himself to his subject, and to make even his me- 
moriter speaking, in some sort, a spontaneous 
effort;* if what he has previously written and 

* The great difficulty of speaking when actually tied down 
to a particular form of words is shown by the fact of many 
extempore preachers, and even those who have the power of 
memoriter speaking, being quite unable to repeat any of the 
Collects or Prayers in the Church Service, or, at times, even 
the Lord's Prayer, without a book before them. The fear of 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 71 

studied has been expressed in simple and natural 
language, it will then be difficult for him to help 
reproducing it in nearly the same terms. Not so, 
however, if he has indulged in mere rhetorical orna- 
ment or loose unconnected argument ; in this case 
the effort must necessarily be a purely mechanical 
one, and proportionally difficult and hazardous. 

By thus, in a measure, combining the two me- 
thods of speaking, an orator will ultimately gain 
the ease and freedom of a natural delivery, and the 
power, order, and connection of a written discourse. 
He will be able to judge, within a very few minutes, 
of the time that his subject will occupy him ; and 
should he be led to enlarge upon any particular por- 
tions of his argument, he will proportionately con- 
dense that which is to follow. He will handle his 
subject as a master ; he will travel on as upon a road 
he is familiar with, and his own manifest assurance 
will not fail to have its influence upon his hearers, 
and lead them, in the end, to trust implicitly to his 
guidance. 



That the sort of mental brick-making without 
straw, which so many persons understand by ex- 
tempore speaking, is a process almost unknown to 
the world's best orators we have abundant proof. 
The following notes of a Lecture by the late Mr. 
Robertson of Brighton, published after his death, 

repeating the words incorrectly does in reality prevent them 
thoroughly feeling what they say, and prevents them uttering 
those words which would flow spontaneously under other cir- 
cumstances. 



7-2 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

will give a good idea of the minimum of prepara- 
tion which will enable most men to express them- 
selves as they would wish on any public occasion. 

Those who may have known Mr. Robertson's 
singular force and felicity of expression, his concen- 
tration, and even condensation of ideas, and the 
power which he invariably exercised on the minds 
of his hearers, will regard the authority of his ex- 
ample in this matter as second to none in modern 
times. 

" I am here to-night through the invitation of your kind 
friends, with no right but that of unfeigned interest in every 
institution like j'ours. 

" The subject I had proposed was the Progress of Society. 
I changed it for that of the Working Classes. But even this 
is too full of pretension. Nevertheless, the mere fact of my 
standing here to-night is full of significance. More so than 
railways or electric telegraphs. That so many of the Work- 
ing Classes should come here after a hard day's work is very 
significant. It proves the growing victory of the spirit over 
the animal : that the lower life of toil and animal indulgence 
is getting to be reckoned as not the all of man. It shows, too, 
that the Working Classes are becoming conscious of their 
own destinies, &c. &c." 

The notes for the whole Lecture are as full and 
accurate as the above, and show how thoroughly 
his subject, even for a village Lecture, was thought 
out and arranged. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 



CHAPTER X. 

" Where I have come, great clerks have purposed 
To greet me with premeditated welcomes ; 
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, 
Make periods in the midst of sentences, 
Throttle their practised accents in their fears, 
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, 
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, 
Out of this silence, yet, I picked a welcome ; 
And in the modesty of fearful duty 
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue 
Of saucy and audacious eloquence. 
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity, 
In least speak most, to my capacity." 

Shakespeare, Midsummer IVlght's Dream. 

HERE is," says Mr. Addison, "a sort 
of elegant distress to which ingenuous 
minds are the most liable, and which 
may, therefore, deserve some remarks. 
Many a brave fellow who has put his 
enemy to flight in the field has been in the utmost 
disorder upon making a speech before a body of his 
friends at home. One would think there was some 
kind of fascination in the eyes of a large circle of 
people when darting altogether upon one person. 

" It is impossible that a person should exert him- 
self to advantage in an assembly, whether it be his 
part to sing or to speak, who is under too great op- 




74 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

pressions of modesty. I remember, upon talking 
with a friend of mine concerning the force of pro- 
nunciation, our discourse led us into the enumera- 
tion of the several organs of speech which an orator 
should have in perfection — as the tongue, the teeth, 
the lips and nose, the palate, and the windpipe — 
upon which says my friend, you have omitted the 
most material organ of them all, and that is the 
forehead. But, notwithstanding that an excess of 
modesty obstructs the tongue and renders it unfit 
for its office, a due proportion of it is thought so 
requisite to an orator that rhetoricians have recom- 
mended it to their disciples as a particular in their 
art. Cicero tells us that he never liked an orator 
who did not appear in some little confusion at the 
beginning of his speech ; and confesses that he him- 
self never entered upon an oration without trembling 
and concern. It is, indeed, a kind of deference 
which is due to a great assembly, and seldom fails 
to raise a benevolence in the audience towards the 
person who speaks. A just and reasonable mo- 
desty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets 
off every great talent." 

Surely these remarks may afford some encourage- 
ment to those who have hitherto imagined that their 
constitutional nervousness was such as to render 
hopeless any attempts on their part at public speak- 
ing, and may lead them to feel that, as time modi- 
fies all things, so their excessive timidity will ulti- 
mately give place to a diffidence which, while it 
will serve as an ornament rather than a hinder- 
ance, will be the most effectual safeguard against 
that overbearing affectation of superiority which in- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 75 

variably offends rather than persuades an au- 
dience. 

The following story, as narrated by Mr. Sheridan, 
in his " Lectures on Elocution," admirably illustrates 
the manner in which a man who abandons himself 
entirely to his subject, and speaks with real feeling, 
may overcome the difficulties arising from an excess 
of modesty, and a naturally nervous temperament. 

" The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ox- 
ford by virtue of his office was to address the newly 
elected Chancellor, in the public theatre, and in the 
presence of many thousand persons. He was no 
way remarkable for oratorical power, and this was, 
perhaps, the first time he found himself engaged in 
a scene of this kind. As he was a man of a specu- 
lative turn, he had an uncommon share, even in 
private company, of that awkward bashfulness which 
is usually attendant upon those who have much 
commerce with books and little with the world. 
Those of his acquaintance, therefore, were in pain 
for him, and they who knew him only by character 
did not expect that he would acquit himself well. 
But all were pleasingly disappointed ; as he had no 
art he did not attempt to use any. He was really, 
and at heart, pleased with the election of the Chan- 
cellor, and expressed himself accordingly. He re- 
ceived him with the same air of cordial joy that a 
man would show on the arrival of a long-wish ed-for 
noble guest, under his roof, whose presence would 
make a sort of little jubilee in the family ; his tones 
were such as result from a glad heart, his eyes spar- 
kled with pleasure, and his whole countenance and 
gesture were in exact unison. No one was at leisure 



76 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

to examine whether any part of his elocution might 
have been more graceful ; it was just, it was forci- 
ble, it moved every one. His easy, natural, and un- 
affected manner, which was, perhaps, scarcely ever 
seen before by any of his auditors in a public speaker, 
excited bursts of universal applause, not from pros- 
tituted hands in support of party opinion, but from 
hearts that felt themselves agitated by a participation 
of kindred feelings resulting from his manner, inde- 
pendent of his matter." 

Our own experience would probably enable most 
of us to record one or more somewhat parallel in- 
stances to the above ; — instances of men who have 
risen under strong emotion, not to make a speech, 
but to express their real feelings, and who have thus 
at once struck the electric chain of sympathy which 
binds heart to heart, and instantaneously flashed 
their message along it, with a speed and certainty 
which the loftiest eloquence would in vain have at- 
tempted to rival. 

It would be absurd pedantry to attempt to give 
any rules by which a man shall overcome his ner- 
vousness, and the dread with which he will approach 
each new trial of his powers. We can only say, 
that he must speak from a sense of duty, he must 
have at once a confidence in, and a doubt of, his 
own power ; a confidence inspired by the feeling 
that he has availed himself of every possible means 
of preparation for the task he has undertaken, and 
a doubt arising from a consciousness that in spite 
of all his labour his sufficiency must depend upon 
something quite external to himself. Above all, he 
must feel that if he does his best, it is to his own 
Master, and not to his hearers, that he must stand 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 77 

or fall. Let him once forget this, and speak with 
the sole view of gratifying an audience, and his 
must indeed be a curiously constituted mind that 
is not either secretly trembling with an excess of 
nervousness at the fear of failure, or palpably puffed 
up with self-complacency at his fancied success. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 



CHAPTER XI. 



rt Dispute it like a man. 
I shall do so ; 
But I must also feel it like a man." 

Shakespeare. 




^T is a mistake into which many per- 
sons fall, to suppose that because a 
man uses words furnished to him at 
the moment, he will, therefore, speak 
with anything like oratorical propriety; 
— there is ever a Scylla or a Chary bdis on one side 
or other of the speaker. If he avoid spouting or 
declamation, he may become tame and spiritless, or 
fall into a mere colloquial style. If he fear to speak 
too fast, he may become tediously slow ; while, from 
a faulty or inarticulate pronunciation, he is in dan- 
ger of being driven into a laboured and bombastic 
delivery; so that, save under the most singularly 
favourable circumstances, it will only be with the 
assistance of a skilful pilot that a speaker will be 
able to steer safely among the various shoals and 
sunken reefs which beset his course. 

The manner of speaking usually termed " spout- 
ing " is one of the many proofs that a little know- 
ledge is a dangerous thing — it is almost invariably 
the result of a short and insufficient studv of the 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 79 

principles of elocution — and thus it exhibits the 
speaker in a sort of chrysalis state, without the in- 
offensiveness of the grub or the beauty of the but- 
terfly. It arises from a speaker attempting to give 
force to an address without knowing how, when, or 
where that force is to be applied ; thus words instead 
of being pronounced with the customary accent are 
" mouthed," and two or three syllables accented 
instead of one; e.g. inspiration would be pro- 
nounced inspiration — confusion, confusion — misfor- 
tune, misfortune — prevent, prevent ; the same is 
done with members of sentences, scarcely any words 
are really subordinated, and the ear is dinned with 
one perpetual round of emphasized and wrongly- 
accented words. If the speaker would but remem- 
ber that his object must ever be to pronounce words 
with the same accent, and sentences with the same 
intonation as in conversation, he would not be likely 
to fall into this error, and still less likely to consider 
that it added to the effect of what he uttered. One 
method of remedying these defects has often been 
suggested, namely — that a man should occasionally 
write down a few sentences of his ordinary conver- 
sation, and endeavour afterwards to read them as he 
would have spoken them. 

Too great rapidity of utterance is one of the com- 
monest faults in speaking, and causes many incon- 
veniences ; it is incompatible, on the part of the 
speaker, with coolness and self-possession, or with 
proper intonation, pronunciation, and general effect, 
and quickly fatigues all parties concerned. Deli- 
beration, on the other hand, has not only the nega- 
tive virtue of avoiding these evils, but of itself 
secures considerable advantages to the speaker. It 



80 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

shows that he is master of his subject, and enables 
him, without either wearying or confusing his 
hearers, to carry their minds along with him, with- 
out any visible effort on their part. 

Distinctness of utterance, although the only me- 
thod by which a person can, without effort, make 
himself audible in a large building, is a point to 
which few speakers sufficiently attend. There must 
be an acquired habit of giving the full value to 
every letter — so far, of course, as it does not "violate 
the conventional mode of pronouncing a word. The 
labials must be sounded with the lips, the dentals 
with the teeth, and so forth, yet, at the same time, 
a pedantic affectation of speaking correctly must be 
avoided ; attention to this rule will not only enable 
a person to be heard, when speaking in his natural 
voice, but will get rid of many inelegancies of ex- 
pression ; e. g. " government" will no longer be pro- 
nounced, govunment — " subjects," subjecs, &c. 
Again, the vowels will all have their proper sounds, 
" charity" will no longer be charutty — " possible," 
posserble — " revelation," revullation, &c. 

The actual management of the voice in speaking 
is a part of the subject which, from the difficulties 
it involves, I would gladly have passed over ; as I 
conceive that no practical good can, for the most part, 
be derived, except from the personal criticism or in- 
struction of one who is able not only to decide when 
a passage is well or badly recited, but to give the rea- 
sons of, and to justify any objections he may make! 

The main point is for a man continually to ask 
himself how he would have spoken a particular sen- 
tence in conversation, and to study to acquire the 
same variety of intonation which he would then have 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME, 81 

used, being careful, however, at the same time, to 
avoid adopting a mere colloquial style of speaking. 
This practice will, in some cases, be sufficient to 
make up for any want of instruction ; more parti- 
cularly if the speaker has any friend upon whose 
judgment he can rely, and who will honestly tell 
him of his faults. 

Of the different kinds of voice the bass will of 
all others be found the most difficult to bring under 
control ; there seems a sort of specific gravity which, 
continually weighing it down, and confining it to a 
few deep notes constantly repeated, causes it to have 
a decidedly narcotic influence upon the hearers ; 
and it is only when the speaker is entirely carried 
away by his subject, and gives utterance to the im- 
passioned tones of deep feeling, that he ever realizes 
the power of the weapon at his disposal. Some- 
thing may be done to remedy this defect by practis- 
ing the higher notes of the voice in singing, and by 
taking care in reading, when it is more under 
control, to pre\ it it sinking too low ; also, by 
thoroughly entering into the subject in hand, and so 
allowing the voice to be the exponent of every shade 
of feeling. 

M. Bautain rightly lays great stress upon what 
he terms a " sympathetic voice ; " he defines it as a 
" power of attraction which draws to it the hearer's 
mind, and on its accents hangs its attention." Again, 
he says, " it is a voice which inspires an affection for 
him who speaks, and puts you instinctively on his 
side, so that his words find an echo in the mind, re- 
peating there what he says and reproducing it easily 
in the understanding and the heart." 

He then goes on to show that this power arises 

G 



82 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

chiefly from the natural constitution of the vocal 
organs, but that it also depends upon the speaker 
evidently feeling that which he utters ; it arises, in 
fact, mainly from kindly feeling and earnestness. 
Without the former all will be repulsive ; 'without 
the latter the speaker's arguments will be like arrows 
shot without strength, however nicely balanced, 
well-feathered, and skilfully aimed, they will inevi- 
tably fall short, or drop harmlessly from the mark. 
It is hardly necessary to add that these sugges- 
tions refer to practice in the study, and that in actual 
speaking there must be an entire spontaneity of 
effort, the result of previous study. Thus, though 
a man may not speak w r ell, he will not offend by 
his manner, because he will always do that which 
at the time is natural to him. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 83 




CHAPTER XII. 

" Cseterae partes loquentem adjuvant; manus prope 
est ut dicam ipsse loquuntur. His poscimus, pollicemur, 
vocamus, dimittimus, miramur, supplicamus, abomina- 
mur; gaudium, tristitiam, dubitationem, confessionem, 
peuitentiam, modum, copiam, numerum, tempus ostendi- 

mUS." — QCINTILIAN. 

OST foreign writers," to quote Mr. 
Addison again, " who have given any 
character of the English nation, what- 
ever vices they ascribe to it, allow, in 
general, that the people are naturally 
modest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national 
virtue, that our orators are observed to make use of 
less gesture or action than those of other countries. 
Our preachers stand stock still in the pulpit, and will 
not so much as move a finger to set off the best ser- 
mons in the world. We meet with the same speak- 
ing statues at the bar, and in all public places of 
debate. Our words flow from us in a smooth, con- 
tinued stream, without those strainings of the voice, 
motions of the body, and majesty of the hand, which 
are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and 
Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, 
and keep our temper in a discourse which turns 
upon everything that is dear to us. Though our 
zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is 
not able to stir a limb about us. I have heard it 
observed more than once, by those who have seen 



84 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

Italy, that an untravelled Englishman cannot relish 
all the beauties of Italian pictures, because the pos- 
tures which are expressed in them are often such as 
are peculiar to that country. One who has not 
seen an Italian in the pulpit will not know what to 
make of that noble gesture in Raphael's picture of 
St. Paul preaching at Athens, where the Apostle is 
represented as lifting up both his arms, pouring out 
the thunder of his rhetoric amidst an audience of 
pagan philosophers. It is certain that proper ges- 
tures and vehement exertions of the voice cannot be 
too much studied by a public orator. They are 
a kind of comment upon what he utters, and enforce 
everything he says, with weak hearers, better than 
the strongest argument he can make use of. They 
keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to 
what is delivered to them, at the same time that 
they show the speaker is in earnest, and affected 
himself with what he so passionately recommends 
to others. Violent gesture and vociferation na- 
turally shake the hearts of the ignorant, and fill 
them with a kind of religious horror. Nothing is 
more frequent than to see women weep and tremble 
at the sight of a moving preacher, though he is 
placed quite out of hearing ; as in England we very 
frequently see people lulled to sleep with solid and 
elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed 
and transported out of themselves by the bellowings 
and distortions of enthusiasm. If nonsense, when 
accompanied with such an emotion of voice and 
body, has such an influence on men's minds, what 
might we not expect from many of those admirable 
discourses which are printed in our tongue, were 
they delivered with a becoming fervour , and with 
the most agreeable graces of voice and gesture ! 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 85 

" We are told that the great Latin orator very 
much impaired his health by this laterum contentio, 
this vehemence of action, with which he used to de- 
liver himself. 

" The Greek orator was likewise so very famous 
for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his an- 
tagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, 
reading over the oration which had procured his 
banishment, and seeing his friends admire it, could 
not forbear asking them, if they were so much 
affected by the bare reading of it, how much more 
they would have been alarmed, had they heard him 
actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence ! 

" How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of 
these two great men, does an orator often make at 
the British bar, holding up his head with the most 
insipid serenity, and stroking the sides of a long 
wig that reaches down to his middle ! The truth of 
it is there is often nothing more ridiculous than the 
gestures of an English speaker ; you see some of 
them running their hands into their pockets as far 
as ever they can thrust them, and others looking 
with great attention on a piece of paper that has no- 
thing written on it. You may see many a smart 
rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding 
it into several different cocks, examining sometimes 
the lining of it, and sometimes the bottom, during 
the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man 
would think he was cheapening a beaver, when, 
perhaps, he is talking of the fate of the British 
nation. I remember, when I was a young man, 
and used to frequent Westminster Hall, there was 
a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of 
packthread in his hand, which he used to twist 



86 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

about a thumb or a finger, all the while he was 
speaking : the wags of those days used to call it the 
thread of his discourse, for he was not able to utter 
a word without it. One of his clients, who was 
more merry than wise, stole it from him one day in 
the midst of his pleading, but he had better have 
left it alone, for he lost his cause by his jest."* 

Appropriate gesture in speaking arises from the 
mind either anticipating some forcible expression, 
or rinding words on the spur of the moment inade- 
quate fully to convey its meaning. This at once 
accounts for the fact of so few persons, when read- 
ing from the pages of a written composition, having 
the power of enforcing their words by this appar- 
ently most simple and natural expedient. For in 
reading the mind is generally keeping pace pretty 
evenly with the written matter, oftener lagging be- 
hind than outstripping it ; whilst the words spoken 
invariably precede the mental conception. Thus 
the gesture of readers is often governed by the very 
reverse of the rule of nature. When they are unex- 
cited and treating of a comparatively unimportant 
part of their subject they use action ; but when suf- 
ficiently impressed with it to forget themselves they 
are perfectly motionless, showing at once what is 
natural to them under such circumstances. The 
reader may, however, by practice acquire the habit 
of occasionally enforcing or helping out his words 
by his action, though to do this without effort will 
require him to be able to merge the reader in the 
speaker to an extent which is attainable by very 
few. 

Memoriter speaking, so long as it is entirely a 
* Addison's Works, by Bishop Hurd, vol. in. p. 385. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 87 

mental effort, is almost necessarily unaccompanied 
by action, the mind being so concentrated upon 
words as to paralyze every other power, and it is only 
as the subject more entirely possesses the speaker, 
and the prepared words or others in their place 
come spontaneously, that he begins to enforce his 
meaning by gesture. 

Again, many men speak in the manner described 
by Mr. Addison, partly from a naturally unexcitable 
temperament, and partly from having acquired the 
habit during their earlier efforts at public speaking. 
Though they may have overcome the first painful 
nervousness there is still a mauvaise honte, which 
effectually checks their natural ardour, and the fear 
of unpleasantly concentrating attention upon them- 
selves has prevented them using even their natural 
action easily and naturally. 

The extempore speaker should avoid any ungainly 
habits or inappropriate gestures ; and then he is 
most likely, after a while, to accompany his words 
with that natural explanation or emphatic gesture 
which will alone be of any real service. 

If it is allowable to supplement the memorable 
dictum which gives the first, second, and third place 
in oratory to action, we should add, that such action 
must always be a spontaneous effort on the part of 
the speaker, and simply the result of a desire to ex- 
plain or enforce his meaning.* Assumed or laboured 
action is like rouge to the cheek ; an absence of the 
glow of health would pass unnoticed, but the assump- 
tion of that which is unnatural cannot fail to be de- 
tected, and is sure to excite the severest animadver- 

* The elocution requisite for a good delivery will be con- 
sidered under the subject of reading. 



88 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

sion. Yet, at the same time, it would be as absurd 
to blame a person for taking the necessary steps to 
acquire a natural and graceful mode of delivery as 
for adopting precautional or remedial measures to 
ensure the return of the natural glow of health. 

Believing as we do that the common sense and 
good taste of our countrymen will be quite a suffi- 
cient safeguard against public speaking ever degene- 
rating into mere acting, we cannot but hope that 
there will soon be a marked improvement in this 
particular of English oratory. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 89 




CHAPTER XIII. 

Delectaado pariterque monendo." — Horace. 

^HERE is no more satisfactory evidence 
of the advancement in general intelli- 
gence and of the increasing taste for 
more rational amusement and recrea- 
tion than the Mechanics' Institutes and 
those kindred societies which, in some sort or other, 
are found in all the towns, and in not a few of the 
villages, of our land. Their influence, however, 
being negative rather than positive is seldom fully 
appreciated ; for though prevention is proverbially 
better than cure, yet so much at variance is theory 
with practice that those who ward off an evil are 
seldom, if ever, counted worthy of the reward of 
those who relieve us from its actual pressure. Not 
only, however, do these institutions keep young men 
from that " sight of means to do ill deeds" which 
" makes ill deeds done," but throwing around them 
the safeguard, and stimulating them with the pres- 
tige of a certain position to be maintained in society, 
and at the same time rendering them amenable to a 
code of morals and opinions infinitely higher than 
they could otherwise be subject to — they tend in 
many ways, over and above their more manifest 



90 THE SPEAKER AT HOME, 

means of working;, greatly to raise the tone of a large 
and important class of the community. 

When, therefore, we remember that these socie- 
ties depend mainly upon the support received in the 
shape of lectures, we see at once how strong an in- 
ducement is thus held out to men of education to 
acquire the power of imparting their knowledge in 
an agreeable manner, and why also this subject of 
" lecturing" should claim some especial notice in 
such a work as the present. 

There is, however, a less disinterested motive 
which may weigh with those who wish to qualify 
themselves as speakers. Like many another well 
meant action, it will be found to react as beneficially 
upon the doer as it acted in the first instance on the 
recipient. The more easy and familiar style involved, 
the greater indulgence extended to every defect, and 
the licence usually allowed of combining reading 
with speaking, conjoin to make the lecture-room a 
peculiarly appropriate field for exercising and deve- 
loping the powers of the future orator. 

Much has of late been said as to the propriety 
and feasibility of systematically giving lectures on 
familiar topics in agricultural parishes. Having 
myself, during one winter, given a weekly lecture 
of this sort in a country village, I can entirely en- 
dorse the opinions which have been expressed as to 
the good effects these are likely to produce. The 
merging, for the time, of petty social distinctions 
and religious differences, the promotion of cordiality 
and good feeling, the facility for uniting opposing 
interests in any plan of general improvement, and 
the constant opportunity of speaking a word in 
season upon any questions of local or immediate 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 91 

interest, are all practical advantages which belong 
to the system over and above those directly result- 
ing from it. 

To those who may be willing to try the experi- 
ment, a winter's experience as to the modus ope- 
randi and its general results may prove of some 
service. The population of the village in question 
numbered about 300 ; the only available room was 
the school-room, not one of the most modern or 
convenient, but capable, on an emergency, of ac- 
commodating about seventy or eighty persons. The 
first subject was entitled " Dreams and Dreamers ;" 
but, though the stars seemed in every way propi- 
tious, the audience did not arrive ! At last, with 
one or two personal friends, we mustered about half- 
a-dozen persons, by whom an abstract of the pro- 
posed lecture was patiently listened to for some half 
hour or more. The following week, with the same 
subject announced, there was a fair muster, perhaps 
from thirty to forty adults ; this, during the whole 
time, was probably as nearly as possible the average ; 
one or two more popular subjects gathering an un- 
comfortably full attendance. The course of lectures 
culminated in two readings from Shakespeare ; after 
which nothing was very thoroughly appreciated, 
and in the beginning of May they were of course 
discontinued. 

One of the details of management may prove 
useful to others similarly situated. To avoid the 
confusion consequent upon many persons coming in 
late, or the disadvantages of a want of punctuality, 
the first ten minutes or quarter of an hour was de- 
voted to glee-singing ; the school-children, and one 
or two ladies, who kindly assisted, bearing the chief 



92 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

burden of this part of the proceedings, though they 
were often materially aided by those of the young 
men in the village, who would avail themselves of 
the instruction of a certain harmonious blacksmith, 
a veteran ex-member of a cathedral choir ; while, if 
any friend was willing to vary the programme with 
a song, it was held to be perfectly orthodox. With- 
out saying anything as to the artistic merits of the 
general performance on these occasions, I can tes- 
tify to the extreme usefulness of this plan, both in 
evoking all the latent musical talent, and indirectly 
in creating an interest in the musical portions of the 
church service, while for its immediate purpose it 
answered admirably. The one great mistake of the 
whole management, and which would probably have 
told fatally after the novelty had entirely worn off, 
was having the lecture every week instead of every 
fortnight. Not only would the interest have been 
better sustained by this change, but the intervening 
day would have served as a practising evening for 
the choir ; whereas it is next to impossible to get 
any number of persons to give up two evenings of 
the week with any regularity. 

To those who have agreed with my theory of ac- 
quiring and exercising the power of speaking, the 
plan I adopted for carrying on such lectures will, at 
least, seem to have the advantage of gaining in 
simplicity what it wanted in dignity. The subjects 
chosen were generally lighter than those which are 
usually considered appropriate for a lecture-room. 
My plan was to devote the morning of the day to 
the purpose; and, having selected some popular 
book, to glance through it, marking the most useful 
and interesting portions ; thus getting a general 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 93 

view of some of the leading features, I trusted to 
help out the subject-matter so obtained by the por- 
tions previously marked for reading. Travels, bio- 
graphical sketches, and any details of colonial life, 
were readily appreciated; also, historical subjects 
founded on such books as " Ivanhoe," " Prescott's 
Mexico" and " Peru," &c. Nothing, however, 
proved so generally popular as readings from Shakes- 
peare ; explaining the allusions, describing manners 
and customs and places, and here and there narrating 
some historical or other event connected with the play, 
together with occasional remarks naturally arising 
out of the subject, served to prevent the reading be- 
coming tedious, while, by simplifying the plot of 
the original, the whole was easily comprehended, 
even by the youngest portions of the audience. 

The plan of making reading and lecturing go 
hand in hand was, I believe, advocated by Mr. 
Brockneld, in his lecture on " reading aloud," at 
the South Kensington Museum ; and I think that 
all who may ever have tried this method will agree 
that it is both the best, the easiest, and the most ex- 
peditious mode of preparing a lecture, and at the 
same time one which affords the greatest opportu- 
nity of combining the utile with the dulce in tolera- 
bly fair proportions. 

However this may be, this plan of lecturing is 
certainly the best method for a man to adopt who, 
though he may be quite equal to giving any short 
explanations, narrating simple facts, or making cur- 
sory remarks, may not wish to trust entirely to his 
own powers ; such an one, whilst he relieves his au- 
dience from the weariness with which any length- 
ened reading is invariably listened to, and caters for 



94 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

them according to the best of his then ability, will 
not only be fitting himself to be of greater service to 
them at some future day, but will gain the power 
of contributing at will to the pleasure and social 
improvement of those amongst whom his lot may at 
any time be cast. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 95 




CHAPTER XIV. 

" Lives of great men all remind us 

We may make our lives sublime ; 

And, departing, leave behind us, 

Footprints in the sand of time. 

Footprints which perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, may take heart again." — Lokgfellow. 

EARLY four centuries ago a youthful 
artist* stood spell-bound before a mas- 
ter-piece of the immortal Raphael ; at 
last, as his awe and reverence for the 
mighty genius which could so conceive 
and execute deepened upon him, and as his heart 
thrilled responsively to every thought and feeling 
there portrayed, he broke forth in proud humility 
with the ever-memorable exclamation — " I too am 
a painter." Unknown to fame as he then was, 
oppressed with poverty, and debarred from every 
chance of instruction, instead of being crushed with 
a sense of his own inferiority, he rose, with a spirit 
worthy even of a nobler cause, above every petty 
consideration, and felt his heart kindle with emotion 
at the thought that he, too, was called by the same 
honoured name. 

There must be a kindred spirit to this animating 

* Corregio. 



96 T>HE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

the future orator as he studies the great master- 
pieces of ancient and modern eloquence. He, too, 
must feel that his vocation, in the strictest sense of 
the term, is the same ; and though he may never 
hope to attain to the goal of excellence at which ■ 
others have arrived, he will yet rejoice to walk as a 
humble follower in their footsteps ; and in this spirit 
hinderances and discouragements, and even a keen 
sense of his own disqualifications, will but add zest 
to the struggle — Labor ipse voluntas will be the 
motto for a man like him.* 

The more we study the history of oratory the 
more shall we be convinced that natural facility of 
speech oftener results in mediocrity than in excellence. 
The greatest men in this as in every other art have 
been the men who have laboured most. The painter, 
the musician, the scholar, or the divine, all, in fact, 
who have attained to eminence in their particular 
spheres of life, know within themselves that they 
are distinguished from those with whom they first 
competed, not so much by superior genius as by 
greater energy and perseverance. It is true that, 
just as some persons of great wealth would fain have 
their fortune attributed to anything rather than their 
own exertions, so it may gratify a petty vanity in 
some men to conceal the steps by which they have 
risen. Unfortunately, this vanity is very general ; 
we see it at work in our schools, our universities, 
and in public life ; making success, if attributed to 
plodding industry, to be spoken of with a sneer, if 
to innate genius, to be regarded with unqualified 

* " I was not swaddled, and dandled, and rocked into a 
legislator ; nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me." — 
Burke's Correspondence. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 97 

admiration. Thus it happens that the world is misled, 
it accords to the few a monopoly of that which be- 
longs to the many ; while some of its brightest 
lights, though set upon a candlestick, had far more 
advantageously been placed beneath a bushel. 

In one of his earlier contributions to the " Edin- 
burgh Review/' we find Lord Brougham expressing 
a very strong opinion as to the labour absolutely 
indispensable to make a good speaker. The quota- 
tion itself will be my best apology for giving it at 
length. 

He says : — " A corrupt and careless eloquence so 
greatly abounds that there are but few public speakers 
who give any attention to their art, excepting those 
who debase it by the ornaments of most vicious 
taste. Not, indeed, that the two defects are often 
kept apart ; for some men appear to bestow but little 
pains upon the preparation of the vilest composition 
that ever offended a classical ear, although it displays 
an endless variety of far-fetched thoughts, forced 
metaphors, unnatural expressions, and violent per- 
versions of ordinary language. In a word, it is 
worthless, without the poor merit of being elaborate, 
and affords a new instance how wide a departure 
may be made from nature with very little care, and 
how apt easy writing is to prove bad reading. 

" Among the sources of this corruption may 
clearly be distinguished, as the most fruitful, the 
habit of extempore speaking acquired rapidly by 
persons who frequent popular assemblies, and, be- 
ginning at the wrong end, attempt to speak before 
they have studied the art of oratory, or even duly 
stored their minds with the treasures of thought and 
of language, which can only be drawn from assiduous 

H 



98 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

intercourse with the ancient and modern classics. 
The truth is, that a certain proficiency in 'public 

speaking may be attained, trith near!// infallible 
certainty, by any person mho chooses to give him- 
self the trouble of frequently trying it, and can 
harden himself against the pain of frequent failure. 
Complete self-possession and perfect fluency are 
thus acquired almost mechanically, and with no 
reference to the talents of him who becomes possessed 
of them. If he is a man of no capacity, his speeches 
will of course be very bad ; but, though he be a man 
of genius, they will not be eloquent : a sensible re- 
mark, or a fine image, may frequently occur, but the 
loose, and slovenly, and poor diction, the want of art 
in combining and disposing his ideas, the inability 
to bring out many of his thoughts, and the utter in- 
competency to present any of them in the best and 
most efficient form, will deprive such a speaker of 
all claims to the character of an orator, and reduce 
him to the leveLof an ordinary talker. Perhaps the 
habit of speaking may have taught him something 
of arrangement, and a few of the simplest methods 
of producing an impression ; but beyond these first 
steps he cannot possibly proceed by this empirical 
process, and his diction is sure to be much worse 
than if he had never made the attempt — clumsy, re- 
dundant, incorrect, unlimited in quantity, but of no 
value. Such a speaker is never in want of a w T ord, 
and hardly ever has one that is worth having. ' Sine 
hale quidem conscientid/ (says Quintilian, speaking 
of the habit of written composition,) ' ilia ipsa ex- 
tempore dicendifacultas, inanem modo loquacitatem 
dabit, et verba in labris nascentia.' 

" It is a very common error to call this natural 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 99 

eloquence ; it is the reverse, it is neither natural nor 
eloquence. A person under the influence of strong- 
passions or feelings, and pouring forth all that fills 
his mind, produces a powerful effect upon his hearers, 
and frequently attains, without any art, the highest 
beauties of rhetoric. The language of the passions 
flows easily, but it is concise and simple, and the 
opposite of that wordiness which we have been de- 
scribing. The untaught speaker, who is also unprac- 
tised, and utters according to the dictates of his 
feelings, now and then succeeds perfectly ; but in 
these instances he would not be the less successful 
for having studied the art, while that study would 
enable him to succeed equally in all that he delivers, 
and give him the same control over the feelings of 
others, whatever might be the state of his own. 
Herein, indeed, consists the value of the study : it 
enables a man to do at all times what nature only 
teaches upon rare occasions." 

That the same labour was recognized by the an- 
cients as indispensable, both in the acquirement of 
oratorical power and for each particular exercise of 
it, is too generally known to need more than a pas- 
sing notice. Plato,* of whom it was said that " if 
the Father of the Gods had spoken in Greek, he 
would have used no other language than Plato's," 
continued this elaborate preparation up to his eigh- 
tieth year, and a note-book was found after his death 
in which the opening words of the treatise "De 
Republics, " were found written in several different 
arrangements, the words being, K<xte@w x8e$ Big Hsi- 
poua {jletcc TxauHcovog rod 'ApiWawoj, " I went down 
yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of 
* Lord Brougham, " Edinburgh Review." 



100 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

Ariston," — a passage upon which a modern writer 
would probably think it affectation to bestow a 
second thought. 

Whatever credit we may be inclined to give to 
the traditional story, which tells us the exact manner 
in which Demosthenes surmounted the peculiar dif- 
ficulties with which he had to contend, we cannot 
doubt the fact of his having set himself, at a very 
early age and with determined energy, to overcome 
some great natural disqualifications for oratory. 
But for the well-known circumstances calling upon 
him imperatively to act in self-defence, it is proba- 
ble that his defects would have prevented his making 
oratory a study in his early life, whilst in later years 
they would have become nearly insurmountable. 
For many years, in spite of his laborious prepara- 
tion, he was by no means successful as a speaker, 
and found himself continually defeated by the most 
insignificant opponents. Failure, however, instead 
of daunting, roused him to greater exertion. He 
studied under all the great masters of oratory, con- 
tinuing this study up to a much later period in life 
than we can w r ell understand. Unlike most other 
great orators, he never seems to have acquired the 
power of impromptu speaking, and, except when 
under the influence of extreme passion, was sup- 
posed to be incapable of speaking on the spur of the 
moment. 

By examining repetitions occurring in the several 
" Philippics," Lord Brougham has enabled us to 
understand the progressive workmanship of many 
of this orator's most striking passages. He shows 
how the variations and additions were not only sug- 
gested by these passages having to be adapted to 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 101 

some new purpose, but were intended to make such 
passages in themselves more artistic, and to invest 
them with new beauty, by some happy expression 
or thought which had been suggested subsequently 
to their first delivery. We find also that even in 
narrative and in comparatively unimportant passages 
the same words are repeated in the same order, 
showing that great care had been once bestowed 
upon them, and that that order could not be im- 
proved upon. 

In spite, however, of this elaborate preparation, 
there is no speaker or writer who has more uniformly 
put away all mere meretricious ornament. He 
would weigh well every word ; but it was not only 
to see how it would ornament his own composition, 
but how it would act upon his hearers. He appealed 
to deeper feelings than mere admiration, and left his 
audience no time to think of anything but the sub- 
ject in hand ; according to the old story, instead of 
exclaiming, as he ceased, " What an orator ! " they 
would call out, " Up ! let us march against Philip." 

To understand the secret of Demosthenes' power, 
we need only call to mind the effect produced, even 
upon a body of our cold phlegmatic countrymen, by 
a forcible allusion to some topic of the day, upon 
which the public mind has been much excited. He, 
however, was not content with thus firing any train 
which circumstances had prepared for him, but, 
with the most consummate skill, was perpetually 
preparing some new mine into which he might dart 
the fire of his eloquence, and overwhelm his oppo- 
nent in the explosion which should ensue. 

To the end of time, the name of Cicero will pro- 
bably more than any other be associated with the 



102 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

idea of oratorical excellence. Upon an author, 
however, whose peculiar excellencies and faults are 
on the tongue of every schoolboy it would be tedious 
to make any lengthened remarks. 

His excess of ornament, his sacrifice of truth and 
the interest of his cause to effect, and his theatrical 
combinations arising from an excessive egotism, are 
faults which, if imitated in the present day, would 
probably negative the highest excellencies in other 
points. If there is one thing which an English 
audience instinctively abhors, it is the appearance of 
acting and straining after effect in a. public speaker, 
and to be styled theatrical is the severest censure 
which can be passed upon him ; whereas in ancient 
times the orator and the actor were regarded as 
almost identical. It is especially necessary, how- 
ever, to be on one's guard against the faults of great 
men, because, owing to the false but highly re- 
flected lustre which their excellencies throw over 
them, we may sometimes even be led to imitate 
that which would, if observed elsewhere, have 
called forth our loudest reprobation. We are all, in 
fact, too apt, like the Chinese workman, to imitate 
the cracks of that which we take for our pattern. 

Mr. Pitt is of all others the example most often 
cited to prove how much may be effected by early 
training in oratory. His father, Lord Chatham, is 
said not only to have caused him continually to trans- 
late aloud the ancient classics into English, but to 
have been in the habit of making him declaim upon 
a given topic, about which he had previously given 
him full and accurate ideas. The powers thus ac- 
quired enabled him to bring at once to bear upon 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 103 

any question all the varied resources with which 
nature and education had gifted him. 

Owing to his being called upon unexpectedly, 
his maiden speech in Parliament was made entirely 
without preparation ; yet under these disadvantages 
it is described as having been pre-eminently success- 
ful. He confined himself to answering the former 
speakers, and, being w r ell versed in the subject in 
hand, was enabled, by his previous training, to do 
that at the age of twenty-two which men of equal 
parts, but without that preparation, have never ac- 
complished to the latest day of their lives. He, in 
fact, commenced his public career as a finished 
debater ; and the silence and attention which, when 
he first rose in the House of Commons, all were 
prepared to give to the memory of the father, were 
from that time forward commanded by the eloquence 
of the son. The greatest testimony of all to the un- 
usually early development of his talents as a states- 
man is the important fact that he was prime minister 
of England at the age of twenty-four. 

As an orator Mr. Pitt had few personal advan- 
tages, his countenance being described as repulsive, 
and his general appearance, though commanding, 
ungraceful, if not awkward. His manner of speak- 
ing conveyed the idea of his being haughty and over- 
bearing, and his eloquence seemed always to com- 
mand rather than to persuade. His style, though 
rarely enlivened by the flashes of genius which char- 
acterized his father's eloquence, or varied by the rich 
and bold imagery of Burke, seemed, nevertheless, 
as he spoke, to leave nothing to be required. His 
oratory has been thus described by Lord Bro ugham : — 



104 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

" He no sooner rose than he carried away every 

1 1 oarer, and kept the attention fixed and unflagging 

till it pleased him to let it go, and then — 

' So charming left his voice, that we, awhile, 

Still thought him speaking, still stood fix'd to hear.' 

This magical effect was produced by his unbroken 
flow, which never, for a moment, left the hearer in 
pain or doubt, and yet was not the mean fluency of 
mere relaxation, requiring no effort of the speaker, 
but imposing on the listener a heavy task ; by his 
lucid arrangement, which made all parts of the 
most complicated subject quit their entanglement, 
and fall each into its place ; by the clearness of his 
statements, which presented at once a picture to the 
mind ; by the forcible appeals to strict reason and 
strong feeling, which formed the great staple of the 
discourse ; by the majesty of the diction ; by the 
depth and fulness of the most sonorous voice, and 
the unbending dignity of the manner, which ever 
reminded us that we were in the presence of more 
than an advocate or debater — that there stood before 
us a ruler of the people. Such were invariably the 
effects of this singular eloquence ; and they were as 
certainly produced on ordinary occasions, as in those 
grander displays when he rose to the height of some 
great argument, or indulged in vehement invec- 
tive against some individual, and variegated his 
speech with that sarcasm of which he was so great 
a master, and, indeed, so little sparing an employer ; 
although, even here, all was uniform and consis- 
tent ; nor did anything, in any mood of mind, ever 
drop from him that was unsuited to the majestic 
frame of the whole, or could disturb the serenity of 
the full and copious flood which rolled along." 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 105 

And yet there were some drawbacks to all this. 
The same writer goes on to say, that " when the 
first all-absorbing impressions of his eloquence had 
worn off, and opportunity was afforded for criticism, 
many faults and imperfections were disclosed. 
There prevailed a monotony in the matter as well 
as the manner, and even the delightful voice which 
so long prevented this from being felt was itself 
almost without any variety of tone. His composi- 
tion was correct enough, but not peculiarly felicitous. 
His English was sufficiently pure without being at 
all racy, or various, or brilliant." Again he says, 
" The last effect of the highest eloquence was for the 
most part wanting ; we seldom forgot the speaker, or 
lost the artist in the work. He was earnest enough ; 
he seemed quite sincere. He was moved himself 
as he would move us ; we even went along with 
him and forgot ourselves, but we hardly forgot him ; 
and while thrilled with the glow which his burn- 
ing words diffused, or transfixed with wonder at so 
marvellous a display of skill, we yet felt that it was 
the admiration of a consummate artist which filled 
us ; and that, after all, we were present at an exhi- 
bition gazing upon a wonderful performer indeed, 
but still a performer." 

Sheridan. — " I am sorry to say that I do not think 
this is in your line, you had much better have stuck 
to your former pursuits," was the opinion given by 
one well qualified to judge upon the powers and 
qualifications for oratory of Brinsley Sheridan. His 
curt rejoinder, expressed in language more strong 
than elegant, was characteristic of the man, — It was 
in him and it should come out. 

Some defects he never was able to eradicate — a 



106 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

thick and indistinct mode of delivery, and an ina- 
bility to speak without preparation, characterized 
him to the end ; but by excessive labour he verified 
his own prediction, and, as an orator, eventually at- 
tained to excellence, rarely equalled, and, if we are , 
to judge by the verdict of his contemporaries, never, 
with all its faults, surpassed. After his speech upon 
the Hastings' cause, an adjournment of the house 
was proposed, that the members might have time 
" to collect their scattered senses for the exercise of 
a sober judgment," they being then, to use the words 
of Mr. Pitt, " under the wand of the enchanter." 

Burke said of it that it was " the most splendid 
effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united of 
which there was any record on tradition." Speaking 
of his second speech on this cause, he said that " no 
man of any description, as a literary character, could 
have come up in the one instance to the pure senti- 
ments of morality, or on the other to the variety of 
knowledge, force of imagination, propriety and vi- 
vacity of allusion, beauty and elegance of diction, 
and strength of expression, to which they had then 
been listening. From poetry up to eloquence there 
was not a species of composition of which a complete 
and perfect specimen mightnothave been culled, from 
one part or other of the speech to which he alluded." 

Lord Brougham has thus recorded the means by 
which he rose to such a height of excellence from so 
unpromising a beginning : — " What he wanted in 
acquired learning and natural quickness he made up 
by indefatigable industry ; within given limits, to- 
wards a present object, no labour could daunt him ; 
no man could work for a season w T ith more steady 
and unwearied application. By constant practice in 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 107 

small matters, or before private committees, by 
diligent attendance upon ail debates, by habitual 
intercourse with all dealers in political wares, from 
the chiefs of parties and their more refined coteries, 
to the providers of daily discussion for the public, 
and the chroniclers of parliamentary speeches, he 
trained himself to a facility of speaking absolutely 
essential to all but first-rate genius, and all but ne- 
cessary even to that ; and he acquired what acquain- 
tance with the science of politics he ever possessed, 
or his speecnes ever betrayed. By these steps he 
rose to the rank of a first-rate speaker, and as great 
a debater as want of readiness and need for prepara- 
tion would permit." 

Mr. Sheridan's chief faults are those to which a 
lively imagination, unless under the control of a most 
correct taste, is sure to lead. " He delighted in gaudy 
figures, he was attracted by glare, and cared not 
whether the brilliancy came from tinsel or gold, from 
broken glass or pure diamond ; he overlaid his 
thoughts with epigrammatic diction, he l played to 
the galleries/ and indulged them, of course, with an 
endless succession of clap-traps. His worse passages 
by far were those which he evidently preferred 
himself — full of imagery, often far-fetched, oftener 
gorgeous and loaded with point that drew the at- 
tention of the hearer away from the thoughts to the 
words ; and his best by far were those when he 
declaimed with his deep clear voice, though some- 
what thick utterance, with a fierce defiance of some 
adversary, or an unappeasable vengeance against 
some oppressive acts, or reasoned rapidly in the like 
tone upon some plain matter of fact, or exposed as 
plainly to homely ridicule some puerile sophism." 



108 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

His biographers have preserved several specimens 
of the excessive labour which Sheridan's speeches 
cost him ; even his jokes are found to have passed 
through many editions on paper, and to have been 
subjected to long revision and condensation, before 
they were brought forth and carried all away by the 
irresistible mirth which their appositeness and appa- 
rently unpremeditated wit invariably excited. Before 
some of his greatest efforts he was in the habit of 
retiring into the country and giving himself up en- 
tirely to study. His speeches not only being exces- 
sively elaborated even in their minutest details, but, 
for the most part, committed accurately to memory. 

We turn to a very different character. — Thomas 
Chalmers was born at Anstruther in the year 1780. 
As a boy he was remarkable for his extreme vivacity, 
idleness, and good nature, — characteristics which in 
early youth gave place to enthusiasm, perseverance, 
and general kindheartedness. At the age of nineteen 
he received his licence to preach from the college of 
St. Andrew's, where he had studied for some years 
previously; and at the age of thirty-five we find 
that his literary productions, as well as his extraor- 
dinary powers as a preacher, had brought him into 
considerable notice. His oratory has been thus de- 
scribed: — " His voice is neither strong nor melo- 
dious, his gestures neither graceful nor easy, but on 
the contrary extremely rude and awkward ; his pro- 
nunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly 
provincial, distorting almost every word he utters 
into some barbarous novelty, which, had his hearers 
leisure to think of such things, might be productive 
of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a sin- 
gular degree ; but of a truth these are things which 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 109 

no listener can attend to. This great preacher stands 
before him, armed with all the weapons of the most 
commanding eloquence, and. swaying all around 
him with its imperial rule. At first, indeed, there 
is nothing to make one suspect what riches are in 
store ; he commences in a low drawling key, which 
has not even the merit of being solemn, and ad- 
vances from sentence to sentence, and from para- 
graph to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch 
a single echo that gives promise of that which is to 
come. There is, on the contrary, an appearance of 
constraint about him that affects and distresses you. 
You are afraid that his chest is weak, and that even 
the slightest exertion he makes may be too much 
for it. But, then, with what tenfold richness does 
this dim preliminary curtain make the glories of his 
eloquence to shine forth, when the heated spirit at 
length shakes from it its chill confining fetters, and 
bursts out elate and rejoicing in the full splendour 
of its disimprisoned wings .... I have heard 
many men deliver sermons far better arranged in 
regard to argument, and have heard very many de- 
liver sermons far more uniform in elegance, both of 
conception and of style; but most unquestionably I 
have never heard, either in England or Scotland, 
or in any other country, any preacher whose elo- 
quence is capable of producing an effect so strong 
and irresistible as his." * 

For power of presenting graphic and vivid pic- 
tures before the mind few would excel Dr. Chalmers. 
The conclusion of a sermon on Proverbs i. 29, warn- 
ing his hearers of the folly of trusting to a death-bed 

* Peter's " Letters to his Kinsfolk," 2nd ed. vol. iii. p. 
267. Quoted in Hanna's " Life of Chalmers." 



110 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

repentance, both by its wonderful power, and by the 
effect which it produced, may be compared with the 
well-known passage of Massillon in which he anti- 
cipates the results of the final judgment of his hearers. 
One of his hearers, speaking of this sermon, writes 
thus : — " The power of his oratory and the force of 
his delivery were at times extraordinary ; at length, 
when near the close of his sermon, all on a sudden, 
his eloquence gathered triple force, and came down 
in one mighty whirlwind, sweeping all before it. 
Never can I forget my feelings at the time, neither 
can I describe them. 

" It was a transcendently grand — a glorious burst. 
The energy of the Doctor's action corresponded ; 
intense emotion beamed from his countenance. I 
cannot describe the appearance of his face better than 
by saying, as Foster said of Hall's, it was ' lighted 
up almost into a glare.' 

" The congregation, in so far as the spell under 
which I was allowed me to observe them, were 
intensely excited, leaning forward in the pews like a 
forest bending under the power of the hurricane, 
looking steadfastly at the preacher, and listening in 
breathless wonderment. One young man, appa- 
rently by his dress a sailor, who sat in a pew before 
me, started to his feet, and stood till it was over. 
So soon as it was concluded, there was (as invariably 
was the case at the close of the Doctor's bursts) a 
deep sigh, or rather gasp for breath, accompanied 
by a movement through the whole audience." 

One great secret of Dr. Chalmer's success was 
that he held it to be a duty to bestow upon a com- 
position to be used in God's service not less, but 
more labour than upon any ordinary literary pro- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. Ill 

duction. He showed but little sympathy with those 
preachers who, eschewing all ornaments of style, 
indulged in a laboured simplicity or offensive famili- 
arity; and though at times he has himself been 
charged with going to the opposite extreme, and 
offending by his turgidity of expression, yet from 
the excellence of the motive it may well be regarded 
as a fault on the right side.* We do not, indeed, 
question the sincerity of those who hold a different 
opinion, yet we cannot but regard the fact of their so 
doing as a very curious and contradictory pheno- 
menon of religious experience, and one which we 
can no more account for than we can for the some- 
what kindred inconsistency of those persons, who, 
while content themselves to dwell in houses of cedar, 
would begrudge the smallest expense incurred for 
the beautifying the house of God. 

Lest the marvellous power to which some men 
have attained should seem to place them beyond our 
reach as examples, we must remember that we 
necessarily hear more of the successes than the 
failures of great orators ; and many of those who at 
times have produced the profoundest impression 
have been on other occasions powerless even to keep 
the attention of an audience. 

Burke, for instance, in spite of his rich imagina- 
tion, commanding intellect, and matchless eloquence, 
spoke oftener to empty benches or slumbering hear- 
ers than any of his contemporaries. And we are 
told that on one occasion a member hurrying to the 
House, and finding it rapidly emptying, asked with 

* St. Augustine's remarks on the style of St. Cyprian would 
exactly apply to that of Dr. Chalmers, and may be read with 
advantage by all.— Conf. " De Doct. Christ." iv. 14. 



112 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

the greatest naivete, " Is the House broken up, or is 
Burke on his legs?" If such, therefore, has been 
the manner in which some of the greatest orators 
which the world ever knew have been appreciated, 
we conclude that, in spite of all their study, it would 
be the height of presumption in any, but especially 
in the young and inexperienced, to expect to obtain 
a uniformly attentive hearing. 



I must apologise to the reader for the fragmen- 
tary nature of the above chapter, and the length and 
frequency of the quotations ; both faults are in a 
measure incidental to the subject. My original plan 
was to give a sketch of what Mr. Emerson would 
term " representative men" amongst the world's ora- 
tors ; but it proved impossible to do this adequately 
without departing too far from the main object of 
the present work, and making this part of it out of 
all proportion with the rest.* As to the quotations, 
it seemed better to acknowledge their parentage than 
to " disfigure them, as gipsies do stolen children," 
in order to prevent their being recognized. 

* Lord Chatham and Mr. Canning are the two examples 
I most regret to be compelled, from want of room, to omit. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 113 



CHAPTER XV. 

" c And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last 
night ? ' ' Oh ! against all rule, my Lord ; most ungram- 
matically ! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, 
which should agree together in number, case, and gen- 
der, he made a breach thus — stopping as if the point 
wanted settling ; and betwixt the nominative case, which 
your Lordship knows should govern the verb, he sus- 
pended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times, three se- 
conds and three fifths, by a stop-watch, my Lord, each 
time. Admirable grammarian ! ' ' But in suspending his 
voice, was the sense suspended likewise ? did no expres- 
sion of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm ? was 
the eye silent ? did you narrowly look ? ' ' I looked only 
at the stop-watch, my Lord. ' ' Excellent observer ! ' " 

Sterne. 

OME years ago a man was being tried 
for stealing — what, for the sake of en- 
phony, we will call a Jerusalem pony. 
The name of the counsel for the pro- 
secution was " Missing ;" the defend- 
ant's counsel finding matters going against him, 
after making an elaborate appeal to the jury, wound 
up somewhat in the following manner : — " I think, 
therefore, gentlemen of the jury, you will all readily 
agree with me that the only fact which has been 
proved for the prosecution is one which we never 
for a moment ventured to doubt, namely, that in this 
case ' the ass is missing.' " 

Now the whole force of the joke evidently de- 




114 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

pends upon the manner in which the last four words 
are uttered. To give them expression they are na- 
turally divided into subject and predicate, and the 
voice suspended, though, from the shortness of the 
sentence, almost imperceptibly, after the first clause : 
thus, " the ass' is missing;" but pronounce them 
without this suspension, and, the whole stress coming 
upon the word missing, the joke would seem at best 
to be but an accidental one. This, I think, is one 
of the first principles of reading, to distinguish intui- 
tively where the main division of a sentence occurs, 
and to let the chief suspension of the voice occur 
there. " The ass which has given us so much 
trouble in this case' is missing" — the main suspen- 
sion here occurring after the word case, and the words 
preceding that being pronounced in a running con- 
tinuous tone ; so that we may go on and lengthen 
the subject or predicate indefinitely, and yet the same 
principle must regulate the reading of the whole. 

The fault we are all apt to commit in reading is 
to ignore the suspensions of the voice natural in 
speaking, and attend only to the grammatical pauses. 
(By a suspension of the voice I mean any one of 
those various tones, all indicating incompleteness, 
into which a person will find himself surprised on 
coming unexpectedly to the conclusion of a sentence. 
By a pause I mean the conclusive tones of voice 
naturally adopted when the sense is more or less 
complete.) Thus : — 

" 'Tis sorrow" builds the shining ladder up, 
Whose golden rounds" are our calamities." 

You cannot injure the sense here however long the 
voice is suspended at the words il sorrow " and 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 115 

" rounds," because the sense is manifestly incom- 
plete, and is shown to be so by the tone of voice ; 
but neglect this suspension altogether, and the lines 
go for nothing ; they are badly read, and the mind 
cannot without an effort catch their full meaning. 

Whereas, then, the first principle of accurate punc- 
tuation is, that the subject and predicate should not 
be separated by a grammatical pause ; the first prin- 
ciple of good reading is, that they should be se- 
parated by a marked suspension of the voice. So 
much value may we attach to punctuation as a guide 
to the reader ! 

It is not, however, only at the chief grammatical 
divisions of a sentence, but necessarily at every few 
words, that the suspension takes place ; and the art 
of reading greatly depends upon the discrimination 
with which it is used, and the variety of tone with 
which, according to the context, it is accompanied. 
Each subordinate member of a sentence is as dis- 
tinct from that which follows or precedes it as are 
the separate syllables of a word. The duration of 
the suspension which marks this distinctness must 
be regulated by the length of the sentence, the na- 
ture of the subject, and the convenience of the rea- 
der. The few words making up such minor divi- 
sions will be pronounced as closely as possible toge- 
ther; the final letters often running into the following 
words, like the final s into the initial vowel in French. 
By this means the mind of the hearer catches the 
meaning of what is read without effort, and, instead 
of being confused with a mass of words, ideas are 
at once conveyed to him. A single sentence, par- 
ticularly one of any length, read without attention 
to these rules, has much the same effect as a whole 



110 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

paragraph read without any pause to mark the end 
of the sentences. 

The suspension of the voice is often so slight that 
it might be more accurately defined as simply a 
1 solution of continuity;' this is especially the case 
when the grammatical and logical parts of speech 
are not identical. E. g. 

" How-many-thousand of-my-poorest-subjects' 
Are at-this-hour asleep.'' 

" How many thousand" is here the grammatical, 
and " how many thousand of my poorest subjects" 
the logical subject. So " are asleep" is the gram- 
matical, " are at this hour asleep" the logical pre- 
dicate. Where, however, the words, as in the last 
five of the above passage, all combine to convey one 
idea, and are so few as to be easily pronouncible to- 
gether, they would still be closely connected. 

At other times the grammatical divisions of a sen- 
tence must be subordinated to the suspensive pause. 
E.g. 

" Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, 
Which princes flush'd with conquest seek to hit." 

The main suspension here occurs after the word 
" wanton," the words " the head, which princes 
flushed with conquest seek to hit " being logically 
but one idea ; and we might mark it thus : — 

" Thou-art-a-guard too-wanton" for the head', 
Which princes-flush'd-with-conquest seek-to-hit." 

Archbishop Whateley, in his criticism upon the 
system of punctuation adopted by Mr. Sheridan, 
objects to a mark of suspension being placed after 
the word "land" in the Fifth Commandment; urging 






THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 117 

that it should be placed only after the word " long" 
Whereas it would seem to be required in both places, 
the words being too many to be pronounced in any 
other way without undue effort. Archbishop Whate- 
ley ui'ges, in support of his objection, that " a person 
using such an expression as ' I hope you will find 
enjoyment in the garden which you have planted/ 
would not separate the words l garden' and l which.' " 
Even allowing the truth of this supposition, which 
I cannot, the mere fact of the extension of the gram- 
matical noun being longer in one instance than the 
other prevents the analogy holding good ; the sus- 
pension in no case affecting the sense, and being 
used or omitted at the discretion and convenience of 
the reader ; besides which, the extensive relative 
clause is much more a subordinate idea in the ex- 
ample here quoted, and, admitting a quick collo- 
quial style, would not require the suspension to en- 
force it. 

Mr. Sheridan's fault seems to have been that he 
never understood the grammatical principles* upon 
which his own system was really based ; and though 
a correct ear and taste prevented his falling into 
error himself, yet he failed, probably from this rea- 
son, in making his system of any material service to 
those not equally gifted. 

An error into which many writers on this subject 
would seem to lead their readers is, that every sus- 
pension of the voice will be accompanied with the 
same tone, whereas the tones are so infinitely varied, 
according to the meaning and the context, that it 
would be next to an impossibility to indicate them 

* See end of present Chapter. 



118 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

by anything short of a most elaborate system of 
musical notation ; nor do we think that this would 
succeed, even if composed with the greatest skill, 
and aided by the most practised ear, on the part of 
the learner. If, for instance, we consider the effect 
of one of the most magnificent of Handel's recita- 
tives compared with one of Shakespeare's speeches, 
we see at once that nature has a voice and notation 
of her own, which the skill of all the musicians in 
the world will in vain attempt to rival. 

We dismiss, therefore, entirely the idea of learn- 
ing to read by the assistance of any signs, excepting 
those which may be used to supplement the ordi- 
nary system of punctuation. 

The suspension of the voice of which we have 
been treating will be found to add as much to the 
comfort of the reader as to the pleasure and gratifi- 
cation of the hearers. Not only will it give him 
time continually to take breath, and so enable him 
to convey, without effort, the full meaning of the 
longest and most involved sentences, but it will of 
itself, in a great measure, do away with anything 
like monotony ; as the more entirely the organs of 
speech sink into a quiescent state, the more percep- 
tible will be the difference of intonation on their 
being called again into action. Again, the suspen- 
sive pauses will enable a reader to call attention to 
particular words much more forcibly, and yet more 
naturally, than by the use of strong emphasis. Take, 
for instance, Henry's address to his son. 



" See, sons, what things ye are, 
How quickly nature falls into revolt 
When gold becomes her object. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 119 

For this" the foolish over careful fathers 

Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, 

Their bones with industry ; 

For this" they have engross'd and pil'd up 

The canker'd heaps of strange achieved gold ; 

For this" they have been thoughtful to invest 

Their sons with arts and martial exercises. 

"When" like the bee" culling from every flower, 

The virtuous sweets ; 

Our thighs' pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey, 

We bring it to the hive, and like the bees" 

Are murder'd for our pains." 

The allusive and cumulative force of the passage 
is entirely lost if it is read, " For this the foolish, 
&c." without any suspension. 

This rule holds good especially in the case of 
strong antithesis, double meaning, or satire. E. g. 

" You have done good," my lord, by stealth'' 
The rest' is upon record." 

If read without this suspension the sense is very apt 
to be lost, unless time should be given for the hearer 
to recall and reconsider the words. So, also, when a 
great deal is intended to be conveyed in a very few 
words — as in epigram, or simile. E. g. 

" A single doctor' like a sculler" plies, 
The patient lingers, and but slowly dies 5 
But two physicians" like a pair of oars" 
Will waft him quickly to the Stygian shores." 

One other use of the suspensive pause is too im- 
portant to be passed over — its use, I mean, in mark- 
ing the metre in reading poetry. Some persons make 
poetry a mere jingle, others read it like painfully 
inflated prose ; the difference between the two me- 
thods consisting very much in the manner in which 



120 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

the reader passes from line to line. The first class 
of readers gives the metre without the sense ; the 
second, the sense without the metre ; — as usual, the 
true method lies midway between these extremes. 
The metre must never be ignored however closely 
the last word of a line may be connected by sense 
and grammar with the first of the succeeding one ; 
there must always be a slight, though easy and na- 
tural, suspension of the voice, which, while it does 
not interrupt the sense, will be found to bring out 
the beauty and smoothness of the versification, and 
often the meaning of the poet. No one can read 
Pope or Milton for many minutes without perceiv- 
ing that they often go out of their way to place a 
word at the end of a line, calculating on the force 
which this suspension, lengthened on such occasions 
by a good reader, will necessarily give it. 

A thorough appreciation of the meaning, and 
often the grammar of a sentence, as well as some 
little practice, will obviously be required before a 
person gains the habit of separating and grouping 
his words correctly. Several amusing instances are 
recorded of the various readings which have at times 
been popularly received, owing to absurd errors in 
this respect. For instance, Macbeth is made to 



" Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
Clean from my hand ? No — these my hands will rather 
The multitudinous sea incarnadine, 
Making the green one" red." 

Ludicrously personifying the sea, and calling it a 
" green one." Whereas by reading it thus, " mak- 
ing the green" one red," the full power and beauty 
of the thought is seen at once. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 121 

Another passage Mr. Sheridan quotes in his 
" Art of Reading:"— 

" West of the town" a mile among the rocks" 
Two hours ere noon to-morrow I expect thee, 
Thy single arm to mine." 

Read thus, the absurd idea is conveyed that they 
have to scramble for a mile over rocks, situated at 
the west of the town, instead of the place of rendez- 
vous being some particular rocks " west of the town 
a mile." 

If there is one fault in a child to which one might 
be disposed to be very lenient, it would be that of 
not minding his stops. It often seems as if nature 
in the youthful pupil was struggling against the arti- 
ficial system which it was being forced into ; the 
child regarding its tormentor much as the Chinese 
infant probably does the mother who bandages up 
its feet to prevent them growing to unfashionable 
proportions. Unfortunately, most of us in early 
youth have learnt too well to " mind our stops," and 
it is as difficult to get out of the habit as for the 
aforesaid Chinese to regain the natural shape of the 
foot. 

Enough, however, has already been said to show 
that the system of punctuation is not only a very 
uncertain and insufficient guide to the reader, but 
was manifestly never intended to do anything more 
than to point out the grammatical construction, the 
writer in early times never anticipating that his com- 
position would be read aloud. To get rid of the 
habit of a servile adherence to the ordinary stops 
engendered by early habits, the simplest method is 
to copy out passages and punctuate them for reading, 



123 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

marking the relative duration of the pauses by some 
such signs as would undoubtedly have been used had 
punctuation ever been intended to serve as a guide 
for reading. A habit will thus be gradually formed; 
and after a time a person will, without the least effort 
or thought about the matter, read whatever is set 
before him in an easy and natural tone. 

One point must be clearly understood — that the 
person who makes a proper use of these suspensions 
of the voice can never be confounded with the slow 
drawling reader, even should he occupy the same, 
or a longer time in reading a passage. His reading, 
however slow, will be sharp, clear, and decisive ; 
the pauses serving to group and throw out the various 
members of his sentences, just as light and shade do 
the figures in a picture. Whereas the drawler will, 
on the contrary, confuse the ear as much as the un- 
skilful dauber does the eye. 



The following abstract of a portion of Morell's 
English Grammar (pp. 66 — 95) will enable the 
reader to understand the principles upon which 
many of the above remarks have been founded. 

" A sentence is a complete thought expressed in words. 

" When we express a thought the thing which has occupied 
the mind is called the subject; that which we have thought, 
and can affirm respecting it, is called the predicate ; as, Fire 
burns. 

" Both the subject and predicate may be enlarged, as in the 
{'olio wing example : — 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 123 

Sub. Pred. 
Elementary form, Men I think. 
Enlarged form, Wise Men | think rightly. 

" The noun in the structure of sentences can be expanded 
into infinite and participial phrases : as, Anger is madness ; 
To be angry is to be mad ; or, Being angry is being mad. 

" So the adjective and adverb may be expanded into phrases. 

" The noun, the adjective, and adverb, may sometimes be 
expanded into subordinate sentences ; as, 

1. Anger 

2. To be angry Us madness. 

3. That a man shall be angryj 

" When one or more attributes are added to the simple sub- 
ject it is said to be enlarged ; as, The beneficent wisdom of the 
Almighty is visible everywhere. 

" When the verb does not suffice to convey an entire notion 
of the action which we affirm of the subject, it requires to be 
completed; as, William defeated. Here the idea is incomplete 
until we specify whom he defeated — namely, Harold. The 
word Harold is, therefore, called the completion of the predi- 
cate. 

" The word or words which form the completion of the pre- 
dicate are usually termed the object. The predicate of a sen- 
tence, in addition to being completed, may also be extended by 
words which express any circumstance of time, place, man- 
ner, &c. ; as, The eagle flies with great swiftness. 

" But any of the above subordinate parts may have words 
and phrases still further dependent on them ; and those 
words and phrases may in their turn govern others ; so that, 
taking the subject and predicate as the bases, we may have 
various parts of a sentence at one, two, three, and even four, 
or more removes from the primary elements, there being still 
only one subject and one affirmation in the whole. 



" Example. 

" Decius, tired of writing books adapted to the learned only, 
chose a popular question, with many points of practical in- 
terest in it, for the purpose of bringing into useful exercise 
all the depth and clearness of thought accruing from habits of 
mind long cherished by philosophical studies. 



1l'4 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 





1st 
remove. 


2nd 
remove. 


3rd 
remove. 


4th 
remove. 




Decius 


tired 


of writing 
books 


adapted 


to the lear- 
ned only, 


") belonging 
J to subject. 


Chose - 




a popular 
question, 


with many 
points of 
practical in- 
terest in it, 






) belonging 
) to object. 


for the 
purpose of 

bringing 
into useful 

exercise 


all the depths 
and clearness 
of thought 


accruing 
from ha- 
bits of 
mind 


long cher- 
ished by 
philoso- 
phical 
studies. 


) beloningto 
) extensions. 



' Him the Almighty power 
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition.' 

General Analysis. 



Sub. with Attrib. 


Pred. 


Obj. with Attrib. 


Extensions of Pred. 


The Almighty 
power 


hurled 


him headlong flam- 
ing from the ethe- 
real sky, 


with hideous ruin and 
combustion, 
down 
to bottomless perdition. 



Analysis of Complete Sentence. 

" A reader unacquainted with the real nature of a classical 
education will probably undervalue it, when he sees that so 
large a portion of time is devoted to the study of a few ancient 
authors, whose works seem to have no direct bearing on the 
studies and duties of our own generation. 



A reader unacquainted with the real nature""! Principal 
3f a classical education will probably under- ^sentence 
Jtofc. 



of 
value it 



b. When he sees 



{Adv. sen- 
tence to a. 



That so large a portion of time is devoted to "I Noun sen- 
the study of a few ancient authors . J tence to b. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 125 

d. Whose works seem to have no direct bearO . , 

ing on the studies and duties of our own ge- } . ' . se 

6 , . I tence to c. 

neration J 

" The former scheme of analysis will then be applicable to 
the subordinate sentences." 

By thus understanding the principle of breaking 
up a sentence into its component parts, the youngest 
reader will perceive, at once, both when he may 
advantageously suspend his voice, and what words 
he must endeavour as closely as possible to connect 
together. 



126 TUB SPEAKER AT HOME. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

" Awake the feelings and inform the sense, this is the 
true way to get effective reading. * Every man of genius,' 
says Johnson, t has some way of fixing the attention pe- 
culiar to himself, and, with some few exceptions, every 
man of intelligence will by his natural manner gain the 
sympathy of an intelligent audience, who are seldom 
smitten with the love of what is called fine reading.' " 

Boyes' Life and Books. 

^N chronicling the details of a " marriage 
in high life" the morning papers lately 
remarked, in what were intended to be 
highly complimentary terms, upon the 
manner in which the officiating clergy- 
man had performed the ceremony; an unguarded 
expression caught the keen eye of that censor morum 
of the nineteenth century, Mr. Punch. How he 
proceeded to criticise the offending paragraph I can- 
not exactly remember, but the burden of his remarks 
was, that to speak of a man as reading eyrtphatically 
was as bad a compliment as it was possible to pay 
him, if not a positive insult. Even the oracular Mr. 
Punch probably never uttered a truer sentiment; 
emphasis, as it is often understood and applied, 
being not only out of place in ordinary reading, but 
often positively offensive. 

In ordinary conversation a person scarcely ever 




THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 127 

uses emphasis, save when he is more or less excited 
— much more excited, at any rate, than he should 
ever be in general reading. Now reading, though 
essentially different from speaking, (it being an art 
of itself to write that which shall resemble conver- 
sation,) is so strictly analogous to it, that the same 
fundamental principles will be found to exist in both, 
regulating at once the manner, and the tone, and 
the expression with which our words are uttered ; 
and for this reason I think we can only decide 
what emphasis does mean by reference to our fami- 
liar everyday conversation. Listen for five minutes 
to any two persons conversing together; the first 
thing we observe is that there are invariably one 
or more words in every sentence in which the whole 
meaning centres. We then observe that these words 
are not marked by any emphatic pronunciation, but 
are brought out by the words preceding and follow- 
ing them being more or less subordinated to them. 
Just as in music the fortes are marked by the pianos 
in the previous and subsequent passages, rather than 
by actual strength of voice or wrists in the execu- 
tion of the passage itself. Those persons who can 
appreciate the difference between the two styles of 
singing and playing will understand the difference 
between a reader who marks the most prominent 
words by emphasis and one who leaves the hearer's 
own judgment to infer which they are by subordi- 
nating the rest of the sentence. Take two or three 
instances of this : — 

Do you mind dining early to-day ? 

He said there was a beggar at the door. 

We observe, again, that a very slight difference of 



128 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

tone will make the same words convey a totally dif- 
ferent meaning, and still without the use of any- 
thing approaching to what is ordinarily termed em- 
phasis. E. g. 

" Is old Dibble dead ?" (I thought it was the parson not the 
sexton.) 

" Is old Dibble dead ?" (I thought it was the young one.) 

" 7s old Dibble dead ?" (I think you're joking.) 

" Is old Dibble dead?" (I fancied he was as well as ever.) 

At other times a change of tone modifies the 
meaning. E. g. 

He said the carriage was at the door. 

Implying that it was expected. Or, 

He said the carriage was at the door. 

Implying that it was not expected. 

The fault of many readers is that they pass over 
words which are meant to convey a distinct idea as 
though they would imply that the idea had already 
been expressed, pronouncing them in a tone which 
in conversation means, " But you know all about 
that." Thus in most persons' reading there is no- 
thing graphic, and a description of an event, or 
scene, or dialogue, is scarcely ever realized as it 
would be if related by the same person in actual con- 
versation. This fault too will often be found to be 
the cause of the monotony generally inseparable in 
readers. To avoid this is to practise reading pas- 
sages as to persons who showed some difficulty in 
understanding their meaning. Variety of tone will 
inevitably attend such an attempt. It is not bad 
practice to read passages of Latin to those but slightly 
acquainted with the language, and try to make the 
intonation convey the sense. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 129 

A person who in reading will make the sense of 
his author plain by so simple a process as the above 
suggestion involves will not, indeed, be called a 
" fine reader" by the multitude ; but the very fact 
of his conveying the full meaning without drawing 
any of the attention to himself will be sufficient to 
secure him the approbation of that one judicious one 
whose approval should " in our allowance over- 
weigh a whole theatre of others." 

Words closely connected in sense will often be 
found more or less separated from each other, and 
care will have to be taken by the reader that he 
makes the connection evident by his tone of voice. 
E.g. 

" He stood and called 
His legions, Angel forms, who lay entranced 
Thick as autumnal leaves, that strow the brooks 
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades 
High overarched, embower ; or scattered sedge 
Afloat, when," &c. 

At times several sentences will be found to be 
exegetical of a single word or expression, and, unless 
this is made evident by a sort of continuous and 
subordinate tone, their meaning will often be lost, or 
caught with difficulty. E. g. 

" Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude imperious surge ; 
And in the visitation of the winds. 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them, 
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, 
That with the hurly death itself awakes ? " 

Unless some care is taken in reading the con- 
struction would seem to be about to recommence with 



130 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

the words, " And in the visitation of the" winds," 
and its connection with the words " rock his brains" 
would be completely lost, depriving the whole latter 
part of the sentence of its beauty and effect. 

One error the reader should especially guard 
against — that of giving undue prominence to small 
words, and of pronouncing them as they are spelt, 
instead of according to the conventional manner of 
using them. " My," and all other pronominal forms, 
would always, except for the sake of emphasis, be 
pronounced short, as in conversation. So with num- 
berless other small words, especially the different 
parts of the auxiliary verb " to be." These small 
words are seldom sufficiently subordinated in read- 
ing to the main idea which they are intended to 
supplement. 

I would here remark the great difference an ap- 
preciation of these and such principles will make in 
the reading of the Scriptures, more particularly the 
narrative portions. I remember being very much 
struck with this on hearing the twelfth chapter of 
Acts read. Take the seventh verse : " And, behold, 
the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light 
shined in the prison : and he smote Peter on the 
side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly/' 
By subordinating all the words in the first clause 
to the prominent idea, " the angel of the Lord," the 
narrative is brought out graphically, and the fact of 
the angel's appearance is realized to the hearer's 
mind ; but if read in the ordinary matter-of-course 
style much of this is lost, and it is rather implied 
that it was an event expected than otherwise. 
Again, the fact of a light shining in the prison is 
brought out as something to be remarked upon, and 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 131 

as showing the nature of the visitation. So, again, 
in the words " he smote Peter upon the side and 
raised him wp." So the fourteenth verse : the damsel 
" ran in, and told how Peter stood without;" the 
force of the narrative turning, not upon the fact of 
any one standing without, that being already known 
by the knocking, but upon the fact of its being 
Peter, whom they thought to be in prison. Or, 
take again the beautiful description of Mary meeting 
the risen Saviour at the sepulchre : " She turned 
herself back, and saw Jesus standing." All being 
here subordinate to the fact that, in spite of His 
being crucified, it was actually Jesus who was stand- 
ing near her. And again, " She supposing Him to 
be the gardener ;" the force of the narrative can only 
be brought out by the simple tone of voice in which 
a mistaken supposition would be generally related, 
slightly subordinating the rest of the expression to 
the one important word. 

Nor do I think it would be very difficult to show 
that these principles of reading have sometimes a 
greater importance than merely bringing out the 
force of the narrative — they may even at times throw 
light upon the mistaken meaning of passages. In 
illustration of this I would remark, by way of sug- 
gestion, upon one passage which has been the subject 
of more controversy than almost any other portion 
of Scripture, and the true meaning of which has 
never yet been explained in a manner which does not 
involve some amount of contradiction. The passage 
I mean is this : " Verily, I say unto you, This gene- 
ration shall not pass away, till all these things be 
fulfilled." Our Saviour, pointing to the temple, had 
prophesied its total destruction. His disciples said : 



13'2 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

" Tell us, when shall these things be? and what 
shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of 
the world?" The Saviour at once points out the 
mistake of His disciples in confounding the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem and His second coming ; and then 
throughout His answer He dwells alternately upon 
the two events, again and again referring to the 
" these things" as distinct from His coming, and 
from the end of the world, the exact time of which 
He says no man knoweth ; and He concludes all by 
saying, " This generation shall not pass away till 
these things be fulfilled;" implying, as it would 
seem, that this and many more generations should 
pass away before His second coming, or, as He had 
before expressed it, " but the end shall not be yet ;" 
He having just said that the time of the events which 
they considered to be identical with the destruction 
of Jerusalem was not yet revealed. 

The expectation of the early Church was still that 
Christ's Second Advent would be in that g-enera- 
tion : e. g. " We which are alive and remain until 
the coming of the Lord." We have, therefore, 
strong presumptive evidence that for some wise pur- 
pose the full meaning of our Saviour's words were 
not fully entered into by the disciples themselves ; 
and, as if in confirmation of this, St. Luke, writing 
only from report, gives our Saviour's words as 
though undoubtedly they referred only to the des- 
truction of Jerusalem, and that His Second Advent 
really was to take place at that time. 

It would be manifestly out of place here to sup- 
port this supposition by the arguments which might 
be adduced; but, however this particular passage 
may be viewed, enough has been said to show the 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 133 

importance of the principle here advocated, and the 
absolute necessity of studying the meaning of Scrip- 
ture in order to read it correctly. 

Professor Blunt, in his " Duties of the Parish 
Priest," writes thus on this subject : " No rule for 
reading God's word can help a man so effectually 
as the rule of thoroughly understanding what he 
reads ; while the mere regulation of his voice will 
be an actual commentary, conveying to his hearers 
the true meaning, when it might otherwise escape 
them, and often giving a novelty to lessons which 
they had listened to a hundred times before. For 
how does the argument of the Epistles of St. Paul, 
for instance, suffer in the hands of a reader who has 
not studied them ! How intelligible, even where it 
is subtle, does it often become by the mere cadence 
and articulation of a proficient ! Nay, to take a sim- 
pler instance, let a reader of the following passage 
of St. Luke enter himself into its force, and his em- 
phasis will convey the effect of it to his audience too 
— let him be unaware of its import, (a case I have 
witnessed,) and how does he confound it in the re- 
cital : ' But I tell you of a truth, many widows were 
in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was 
shut up three years and six months, when greatfamine 
was throughout all the land ; but unto none of them 
was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, 
unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers 
were in Israel, in the time of Eliseus the prophet, 
and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the 
Syrian. 9 " 

Passing again to the consideration of ordinary 
reading, I would remark upon the necessity, not 
only of entering fully into the meaning of an author, 



134 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

but also into the feeling which underlies the formal 
expression of his sentiments. This will, of course, 
depend so much upon the good taste of the reader, 
and his appreciation of his author, that very little 
can be said upon the subject. There should be sim- 
plicity in narrative, vivacity in dialogue, earnestness 
in argument, and feeling in rendering the language 
of passion or emotion ; all must be rendered in a 
manner as closely analogous as possible to that of 
speaking, yet without affectation or exaggeration. 

To illustrate some of the foregoing suggestions, I 
have selected a few lines of Longfellow's " Evange- 
line ; " partly because it is written in a style which 
approaches unusually near to that of ordinary speak- 
ing, and partly because the metre in which it is 
written is so utterly alien to the genius of the English 
language,' that, if not read with tolerable correctness, 
it will at once offend the least fastidious ear.* 

" In-the-Acadian-land' on-the-shores-of-the-i?asm-o/-3/inas / 
Distant' secluded' still' the-little-village-of- Grandprt' 
Lay-in-the-fruitful-valley. 
Somewhat-apartf-from-the-village' and-nearer-the-Uasin-o/- 

Minas 
Benedict Bdlefontaine the wealthiest-farmer-of-Grandpre'' 
Dwelt on-his-goodly-acres" and-wiYA-him' directing-his- 

household' 



* This assertion is founded on the fact of the great prepon- 
derance of monosyllables in the purest forms of the English 
language. Shakespeare again and again affords such in- 
stances as the following : — 

" Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet, 

But thou shalt have, and creep time ne'er so slow, 

Yet it shall come for me to do thee good. 

I had a thing to say, but let it go, 

The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day," &c. 

where we have fifty monosyllables consecutively. So in Mil- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 135 

Gentle- Evangeline lived, his-child' and-the-pride-of-the-village. 
Fair was-she to-behold' that maiden of seventeen summers. 
' Sunshine of St. Eulalie ' was she called ; for that was the 

sunshine' 
Which' as the farmers believed' would load their orchards with 

apples ; 
She-too would-bring-to-her-husband's-house' delight-and- 

abundance' 
Filling-it-full-of-Zoue' and the YuA&y-faces-of-children." 

" Once in-an-ancient-city' whose-wa?»e I-no-longer-remember' 
Raised-aloft-on-a-co/awm' a-brazen-statue-of- Justice' 
Stood in-ihe-public- square upholding-the-sca/es in its-Ze/lf-hand' 
And-in-its-rip-fa a,-sword, as-an-emblem" that justice' presided' 
Over-the-laws-of-the-land, and the hearts-and-homes-of-the- 

people. 
Even the birds' had built their nests' in the scales-of-the-ba- 

lance' 
Having no fear' of the swoni-that-flashed-in-the-sunshine-above. 
Might' took the place of right' and-the-weak were-oppressed' 

and-the-mighty' 
Ruled with-an-iron-rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's 

palace' 
That a necklace of pearls' was lost' and ere long' a suspicion 
Fell tm-QXi-orphan-girt who lived as maid in the household. 
She, after-form-of-trial condemned-to-die-on-the-scaffold' 
Patiently met her doom." at the foot-of-the statue of Justice. 
As-to-her-Father-in-Heaven her innocent spirit ascended,' 
Lo ! o'er the city' a tempest rose" and the bolts-of-the-thunder' 
Smote the-statue-of-bronze' and hurled-in- wrath from-its-left 

hand' 
Down-on-the-/jauemew^ below the-clattering-scales-of-the-ba- 

lance' 
And-in-the-hollow-thereof ' was found the-nest-of-a-magpie' 
Into whose clay -built walls' the-necklace-of-pearls was-in- 

woven." 



ton, Spenser, and other old writers. The effect of this strikes 
us at once on reading the English Hexameter 5 we find there 
some eighty per cent, of the lines having two or more mono- 
syllables within the two last feet ; whereas, in Virgil or Homer 
we should scarcely find half-a-dozen such instances in a whole 
book. Thus the rare exception of the Classical is made to be 
the standing rule of the English Hexameter. 



L36 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

Without hazarding any further suggestions on 
this subject, we only remark that in reading for the 
benefit of others all thoughts of rules must be put 
on one side. Habit formed by previous study must 
have become a second nature, and all must, in this 
sense of the word, be " natural;" above all, there 
must never be the desire to display an acquired 
power, but simply to set forth the meaning of an 
author. Just as in ordinary life forgetfulness of self 
is the highest ornament of good manners, and as it 
is so often the distinguishing mark between the mere 
man of birth or fashion and a gentleman, properly 
so called, so will that reader alone attain to the 
highest perfection, who, forgetting himself, keeps 
the one object in view of pleasing or instructing his 
hearers. 



Since writing the above, a friend, whose unusually 
pleasant manner of reading had made me curious to 
know how he had acquired the power, told me the 
advice which he had once received from a remark- 
ably good public reader. It was to the effect that he 
should take a short passage of any author, and read 
it with every possible variety of emphasis and into- 
nation, not keeping to the real meaning of the words, 
but trying to draw out every shade of meaning which 
they could possibly be made to express. The fol- 
lowing lines will present a fair scope for any one 
who may wish to try the experiment. If it should 
do no more than impress the moral of the strain, it 
may not be quite useless : — 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 137 



THE « 'TIS BUTS." 

You ask me the secret by which we contrive 

On an income so slender so fairly to thrive : 

Why, the long and the short of the matter is this, — 

We take things as they come, so nought comes amiss. 

Our sons are no sluggards, our daughters no sluts ; 

And we still keep an eye to the main and " 'Tis Buts." 

Neighbour Squander's great treat, 'tis but so much, he says ; 
And his wife's fine new gown, 'tis but so much, she says. 
'Tis but so much the fair, 'tis but so much the play, 
His child's gew-gaw, too, 'tis but that thrown away : 
But each 'tis but grows on till they run on so fast, 
That he finds 'tis but coming to want at the last. 

Now something occurs, and he says, like a ninny, 

I'll buy it at once, — it is but a guinea : 

And then something else, and he still is more willing ; 

For it is but a trifle, — it is but a shilling : 

Then it is but a penny, — it is but a mite, — 

Till the 'ft's buts at last sum up ruin outright. 

Contentment's the object at which we should aim ; 
It is riches, and power, and honour, and fame : 
For wants and our comforts in truth are but few, 
And we seldom buy that without which we can do. 
This maxim of maxims most others outcuts : 7 
If you'd thrive keep an eye to the main and " 'tis buts." 



138 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

" To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn ; 

To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page ; 

To give society its highest taste ; 

Well order'd home man's best delight to make ; 

And by submissive wisdom, modest skill, 

With every gentle care-eluding art, 

To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, 

And sweeten all the toils of human life ; 

This be the female dignity and praise." — Thomson. 

| AT U RE does not consist in the obser- 
vance of rules, but rules may be de- 
duced from the examination of nature. 
The 'perfection, therefore, of art is in 
nowise incompatible with the strictest 
adherence to nature. 

Now an art is not learned in a day, nor in a few 
hours ; its first principles may be mastered, and 
errors connected with it may be pointed out by one 
already skilled in it, but the application of the prin- 
ciples must be a work of time and study. One great 
fault of the modern system of teaching elocution 
seems to be that the learners are led to suppose that 
hours will undo the work of years ; the consequence 
is that they simply learn to clothe their speech in a 
sort of motley harlequin garb, offensive from its very 
pretension to finery ; it is neither old nor new, but 
genuine patchwork. 




THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 139 

Since, however, experience tells us that the more 
many men strive, by themselves, to attain to a na- 
tural mode of reading the more glaringly absurd 
and painfully ludicrous does their imitative style 
often become, the practical question arises, Where 
is a man to seek the requisite assistance ? Under the 
existing state of things, if he feels his own deficien- 
cies, and seeks for the requisite aid, the chances are 
greatly in favour of his falling into the hands of a 
mere charlatan ; and, as quack remedies are pro- 
verbially dangerous, he will be fortunate if his for- 
mer defects are not made more glaring, and perhaps 
finally incurable. Until this matter is taken up 
by the Universities, upon whom the education of all 
classes directly or indirectly depends, very little 
can be done. We hazard one suggestion in the 
interim, which will perhaps prove more practical 
than it may at first sight appear ; namely, that some 
one well qualified, if not to instruct, at least to 
criticise, may he found by almost every family fire- 
side. It is a fact which experience will I think 
bear out, that amongst educated Englishwomen it is 
as rare to find a really bad reader as a really good 
one amongst the same class of men. One of the 
few good readers I have known told me he owed 
what power he possessed in that way to his wife ; 
not that she herself had any remarkable skill in the 
art, but, having good taste and a critical ear, she 
could tell when a passage was read well and na- 
turally, and he, on the other hand, had perseverance 
enough to study a sentence, and read it again and 
again, until he satisfied his fair critic. 

It was with a perfect appreciation of a woman's 
more refined taste and power at least of criticism 



140 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

that Sir Walter Scott ascribes to the pen of a girl 
of eighteen (Julia Mannering) the following inimi- 
table description of a good reader : — 

" In the evening papa often reads, and I assure 
you he is the best reader of poetry you ever heard ; 
not like that actor who made a kind of jumble be- 
tween reading and acting, staring and bending his 
brow, and twisting his face, and gesticulating as if 
he were on the stage and dressed out in all his cos- 
tume. My father's manner is quite different — it is 
the reading of a gentleman who produces effect by 
feeling, taste, and inflection of voice, not by action 
or mummery." 

We do not, of course, understand this to be appli- 
cable to public reading, though in this case we can- 
not but repeat what Addison has said of a speaker, 
that he ought " either to lay aside all kinds of ges- 
ture, or at least to make use of such only as is 
graceful and expressive." At any rate, if a man has 
the least respect, not only for himself but for his 
hearers, he will avoid the sort of barn-door thea- 
trical style which Sir Walter's fair heroine so justly 
criticises, and will take care that his whole gesture 
and manner does not transgress the bounds of that 
modest assurance which commands as much by its 
own self-respect as it pleases by its manifest defe- 
rence to others. 

I am not supposing that many of those who may 
read these pages will have secured the domus et 
placens uxor sufficiently early in life to do as the 
more fortunate individual whose case I quoted above ; 
but I think that every one who will put aside the 
foolish idea that good reading is a mere childish 
accomplishment may readily, within the circle of his 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 141 

own family, secure " half-hours with an approved 
critic," and may thus, in the course of a few weeks 
or months, do much towards making himself a really 
good reader ; I say making himself, because we 
shall find that even persons of the most accurate 
taste can seldom explain exactly why a particular 
passage is read wrongly, and where and what the 
fault is. It will often be according to the tenor of 
the old story : — 

" I do not love you, Dr. Fell, 
The reason why I cannot tell." 

" The reason why " a man must do his best to 
find out for himself. May he not only succeed 
in this, but discover the remedy and reverse the 
judgment ! 



14-2 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 




On certain Physiological Points connected with 
Speech. By Dr. Stone. 

[Y far the greater number of the functions 
necessary to our life, and indispensable 
as means of intercourse with our fellow- 
creatures, are the result of practice and 
gradual acquirement. It is somewhat 
remarkable that in the looseness of everyday thought 
they should be regarded as instinctive and intuitive. 
And yet it needs only a moment's recollection to show 
that walking, eating, and many similar uses of the 
body, are almost as much results of teaching as spel- 
ling and arithmetic. It is true they are founded on in- 
stinctive predispositions ; but instinct, which directs 
the whole life of the lowest animals, and a consider- 
able portion even of the highest, seems in the human 
species to have a short predominance. By the end 
of the first year of infancy its power is on the wane ; 
and though perhaps some influence lingers here and 
there in the mind, and can be detected later in life, 
still it has ceased to be the paramount lord of the 
earliest times. 

These remarks apply in the closest manner to the 
function of speech. The infant, from a very early 
period, has means of expressing pleasure and dis- 
pleasure, pain and desire ; it crows or smiles, moans 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 143 

or cries, with an impulse purely instinctive and in 
no way superior to the like manifestation in the dog 
or the horse. But this state of things soon ends. 
Not long after the wandering eye and vacant stare 
of infancy have given way to the wistful gaze of 
dawning intellect, the ear also begins to note and 
treasure up sounds repeated in its hearing. At first, 
indeed, the child only showed a recognition of its 
father, or brother, or nurse, by that lighting up of 
the face approaching to a smile, which is unmistak- 
ably to be noticed even in the more intelligent breed 
of dogs on the sight of their master, and for which 
the Greeks had a peculiar word ; a word which, as 
in the passage below, would serve equally for the 
affectionate glances of dear relations:* but whenever 
the father comes in sight, the child's ear is struck 
by the repetition of his name ; and it is not long 
before an imitative tendency, itself little more than 
an instinct, leads to the first attempt at speech, so 
long watched for and so carefully chronicled by the 
mother. In this attempt is the germ of future 
reason ; the child has begun to exercise its power of 
learning and rises from the mere animal to the ranks 
of " articulate-speaking men." 

Speech is, then, an acquirement, not a gift; and its 
intermediary instrument is the sense of hearing. 

From the first, however, the mental capacity pre- 
cedes and outstrips the physical muscular power. 
In this fact lies the explanation of that nursery 
vocabulary, which has existed in all ages, nations, 

* Cf. Sophocles, CEd. Col. 320 :— 

Qaidpa yovv oltt 6{ifiaTh)v 

Satva fxs 7rpo<rTeixovaa. 

Antigone is describing the approach of her sister Ismene. 



144 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

and languages,* — of those imperfect attempts to 
render by the unpractised vocal organs ideas already 
grasped by the mind. 

Nor is it until several years have passed by that 
a full command is attained over the complex ma- 
chinery of speech. Few things are more startling 
than to hear, as occasionally we all may, truths 
babbled forth from young minds which have begun 
to think soundly and earnestly, by lips which 
have not yet mastered the niceties of the investing 
language. 

This want of control over the voice is not limited 
to youth alone. It is a well-known physiological 
fact that children deaf from their birth, although 
perfect in their vocal organs, remain mutes through 
life. And it is to be feared that many, without this 
excusing infirmity, never obtain such command over 
their articulating powers as fits them to exchange 
freely their thoughts and observations with their 
fellow men. 

Our first object, then, is to give an account of the 
mechanism of speech, and of the organs whose use 
we all learn at various times, but in very different 
degrees of perfection. 

The organs of speech in man consist of several 
complex muscular arrangements, beginning at the 
upper part of the windpipe and terminating at the 
opening of the lips. The lungs and chest, situated 
below this region, perform the office of organ bellows 
in supplying compressed air, whose vibrations, 

* It is remarkable that the result of the curious experiment 
narrated by Herodotus, II. 2, was the production of one of 
these nursery words — fisKog — bekos. It may possibly be an 
imitation of the goat's bleat by a child. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 145 

modified by the various appliances along its passage, 
cause the great variety of sounds available for sing- 
ing or oratory. 

In the instrument of speech there are two main 
elements; one the larynx, in which is formed the 
fundamental musical note ; the other consisting of the 
throat, nose, tongue, teeth, and lips ; by all of which 
the note produced below is started, stopped, and 
modified, into the syllables of which words are 
constructed. The former of these two elements is 
fairly represented in many of the wind instruments 
which man's ingenuity has fabricated ; but the latter 
has nothing to correspond to it, and has never been 
imitated except with some imperfectness. 

The larynx is best described as a cavity of very 
irregular shape, forming the upper extremity of the 
trachea or windpipe. By its upper part it is con- 
tinuous with the back of the mouth, and is there in 
close proximity to the oesophagus or gullet. Indeed, 
as it opens in front of that tube, all our food has to 
pass over its edges ; and would of necessity fall into 
it, if there were not a contrivance specially adapted 
to prevent such occurrences. The epiglottis forms 
a sort of lid to the orifice, and being highly sensi- 
tive, closes with spasmodic force directly any sub- 
stance touches it ; consequently, in the act of swal- 
lowing, the food glides over the top of this trap 
door, and reaches the stomach in safety. 

The larynx is less than an inch below the epi- 
glottis. Externally in the neck we can feel a hard 
pointed projection, commonly called the " Pomum 
Adami," or Adam's apple. This is the outer surface 
of the thyroid cartilage, which forms internally the 
walls of the larynx. 



146 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

Across the cavity of the larynx are stretched two 
elastic membranes in the same horizontal plane. 
They are attached to the walls by thin edges, and 
nearly close the opening across which they are ex- 
tended, leaving only a narrow slit in the middle. 

For regulating the position and tension of these 
membranes a complex series of small muscles is 
provided. During silence and ordinary respiration 
it appears that the vocal ligaments, falling asunder 
behind in the shape of the capital letter V, leave a 
large opening for the passage of air. But at the 
commencement of speech or singing they are ap- 
proximated as closely, or nearly so, behind, as they 
are permanently in front. There remains only a 
small flat chink; through which a worn shilling 
would about slip. Immediately the current of air is 
forced from the lungs through this fissure, its edges 
enter into vibration, and a musical note is produced. 

This musical note is susceptible of great variation, 
proportionate to the greater or less tension of the 
vocal chords. In singing it ranges within a compass 
of about three octaves, and in most persons exceeds 
two. But in speaking the limits are much less 
extended. The extreme high and low notes are for 
obvious reasons but little used. Few persons much 
exceed an octave in the inflections of conversation, 
even where there is no difficulty in being heard ; in 
speaking to an audience, or in any large space, the 
compass is necessarily much smaller than this. In- 
deed some of the most impressive preachers and 
orators of the present time make habitual use of only 
five or six consecutive musical notes. 

Very few male voices, whatever their singing 
compass, make use of notes in speaking outside the 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 147 

upper bass octave, from — — i . Such as 

do exceed these limits will at onceattract attention by 
their exceptional shrillness or depth. 

It is well known that the voices of women and of 
boys are of a much higher pitch. Generally speak- 
ing, there is an octave or rather more intervening 
between the two, and the soprano or treble voice 
is considered to begin at the middle C of the piano 
where the bass ends ; the female contralto falls some 
notes below this, and the male tenor often rises 
nearly an octave above. 

It is not to be supposed that the selection of a 
single tone, as the principal speaking note, implies 
the constant use of it through a long series of sen- 
tences, or even through several words. The pitch 
varies extensively with the character and rhythm of 
the subject. We are not generally aware ourselves 
how large are the musical intervals traversed by our 
voices in an impassioned elocution ; and it is one of 
the first requisites for good speaking that this fact 
should be realized and carried into practice. 

The rhetoricians of classical times made a distinc- 
tion of sounds into concrete and discrete ; by the 
latter were implied the ordinary musical intervals 
of most instruments, such as the flute and piano, 
definitely separated from one another, and incapable 
of blending together; by the latter were signified 
tones which want this clear demarcation from one 
another, but pass, by an insensible gradation, through 
a series of notes with more or less representation of 
all the intermediate sounds. This is the character 
of the notes used in speech ; and by the wavelike 



148 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

swaying to and fro of the inflection are they made so 
wonderful representations of the thoughts and pas- 
sions passing through the mind. 

Every one must, in a few cases, be well aware of 
this peculiarity of speech ; but it needs close attention 
to appreciate its extent. Perhaps the most con- 
vincing method of studying it consists in listening to 
an impassioned discourse — a lecture, or, still better, 
a dialogue, such as occurs in theatrical representa- 
tion — at a distance, which shall obscure the sense of 
the individual words and leave only perceptible the 
inflections of the musical note. The short interval 
between arrival in the corridor and the opening of 
the box door at a theatre gives sometimes a very 
amusing illustration of the principle ; or, if the reader 
does not chance to have noticed this already, he has 
only to pause and listen before entering a room in 
which lecturing or public speaking of any kind is 
going on; even the animated conversation of a family 
party is worth studying with this view. This exer- 
cise might be carried a step farther, and made a test 
of the control under which different persons keep 
their voices, and the more or less harmonious cha- 
racter of their periods. It would thus somewhat re- 
semble the method recommended by some teachers 
of painting for studying the effect of colour and 
contrast uncomplicated by details of drawing and 
perspective. 

The musical conditions of speech are moreover 
much affected by various circumstances external to 
the speaker. The principal of these are the number 
of persons addressed, and the size and character of 
the building containing them. 

Generally speaking, anything which tends to make 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 149 

hearing difficult is met by a corresponding rise in 
the pitch of the voice. Sir W. Scott, in one of his 
novels,* has alluded to this fact as well known in 
mountainous districts, — in the roar of a waterfall or 
mountain torrent a shrill female voice can be heard 
where a man's deeper notes are quite inaudible ; 
and every one must have remarked that in shouting 
to a great distance notes are used much above the 
ordinary speaking pitch. The same is true, in a less 
degree, of speaking to large numbers, or in a large 
building. It will generally be found that public 
speakers' voices, when used in conversation, seem 
to have sunk considerably in scale. 

The same influences narrow the range of the 
upward and downward inflection : persons speaking 
to large audiences will be found to limit their notes 
to a comparatively small number ; and one of the 
greatest difficulties in theatrical elocution is said to 
be the rendering the utterance of various passions 
and emotions with sufficient emphasis, and variety, 
without dropping the voice so much in places as to 
be partially inaudible. 

Another musical element concerned is the conso- 
nance of the building with the speaker's voice. Every 
regularly shaped room has some one or two notes 
which reverberate more freely, and spread more 
easily through its various parts ; and it is of the 
greatest importance that these should be adopted. 
For this purpose experiment and practice are pro- 
bably the best guides. Indeed, to a person of a 
musical ear there is a consciousness of concord on 
the sounding of the consonant note, or one of its 
near relations. 

* Anne of Geierstein. 



150 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

A convenient practical rule has, however, been 
given for the guidance of speakers in accommodating; 
the loudness and pitch of their voice to the size of 
the room in which they have to speak. It consists 
in fixing the eyes on the farthest corner of the room, 
and addressing the speech to those who are there 
situated ; commencing rather softly, the voice is 
gradually raised until it seems to return to the 
speaker, not with a noisy echo, but with a sensation 
of its pervading all parts of the building. 

Buildings of very large size and of irregular form 
present a greater difficulty, inasmuch as they rever- 
berate with several notes at a time, and sometimes 
prolong some one or more in the form of a musical 
echo. These echoes have been well divided into the 
quick echoes and the slow. The former immediately 
reverberate a confused iteration of the sounds ; and 
the latter, w T hich are generally much more distinct 
and articulate, only repeat after a pause of one or 
more seconds. The first kind apparently depends on 
the simultaneous reverberation from several flat sur- 
faces, such as the walls, ceiling and floor, all of which 
are near the speaker, and whence the sound instantly 
returns. The second is generally attributable to 
some one or more distant reflecting surfaces acciden- 
tally placed in such a relation to the speaker as to 
return his words to him, after twice traversing the 
length of the building.* The musical echo seems 



* The well-known Lurley echo on the Rhine is of this cha- 
racter. It is not necessary that the echo should return to the 
speaker himself most loudly. In one of the London churches, 
by a singular echo, the preacher seems to be speaking at the 
ear of a person directly he eaters the door; and in St. Paul's 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 151 

similar to the ringing sound produced by stamping 
or clapping the hands in a vaulted building, and 
probably depends on the reflection of sound from a 
large number of small surfaces, situated at regular 
and symmetrical distances beyond one another. 
Thus the returned wave of sound comes in pulsations 
following one another at fixed intervals, determined 
by the distance of each reflecting surface beyond the 
last. Now as regularity of pulsation above a certain 
rapidity forms a musical note, this kind of echo is 
more or less impressed with the same character. 
There seems no remedy for these difficulties, except 
a consciousness of their effects with great slowness 
and deliberation in speech ; but high pitch is an 
important auxiliary. In connection with this point 
it is curious to notice that in our cathedrals, buildings 
generally of very large size and irregular shape, and 
frequently echoing with several discordant musical 
echoes, the practice of intoning has been preserved. 
It would appear as if this custom of reciting the 
prayers to a single high note, with occasional rising 
and falling inflections to mark the terminations of the 
sense, had at first originated in accident ; for it is 
an indisputable fact that the same voice can be made 
to travel much farther in a building when it is thus 
used than when there is much fluctuation of the 
pitch ; indeed, the returning echoes meeting with an 
incongruous note greatly obscure the sound. Most 
persons, moreover, who have to read with some ra- 
pidity, after a time fall into a monotone more or less 

school-room the master of one form could formerly hear the 
voices from another form at the end of the room more distinctly 
than those of the boys immediately around his desk. 



152 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

perfect, according to the accuracy of their ear and 
their control of voice. In college chapels the writer 
has frequently had occasion to notice this ; for in 
them the service is mostly repeated twice a day by 
the same chaplain. 

Even the inflections used in intoning seem in the 
same way derived from those natural to the voice. 
If we read aloud to ourselves the suffrages of the 
Morning Prayer, or of the Litany, with much em- 
phasis and feeling, we shall often find that we are 
unconsciously approaching very near to the setting 
of them in Tallis's Service, or still nearer to those 
of the common Cathedral Use. 

In making the preceding remarks it is far from 
our intention to consider speech as a branch of music. 
This has indeed been attempted;* several learned 
and ingenious works have been devoted principally 
to carrying out this theory. But interesting as the 
subject may be, in the light of a problem of physical 
science, it can hardly be trusted to as a guide for 
the attainment of direct intonation. 

Thjis it is not the proper place to go minutely 
into the doctrine of the rising and falling inflections, 
and the modifications of sense suggested by them. 
These and other questions of accent and rhythm can 
be as well, or better, investigated apart from musical 
considerations. 

At the same time it seems of the utmost impor- 
tance to impress clearly on the mind of a learner 
the fact that the musical inflections of the speaking 
voice are very extensive ; indeed, they may easily 

* Steele : " An Essay towards establishing the Melody and 
Measure of Speech, &c. London, 1775." Dr. Rush : " Philo- 
sophy of the Human Voice, Philadelphia, 1845." 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 153 

rise or fall through a space of four or five tones at a 
time. This fact is probably not realized explicitly 
by the great majority of speakers ; for imitation and 
training develope the use of the voice so early, and 
so unconsciously, that we get to be ignorant of the 
processes which we are constantly employing. And 
here we may meet an objection which will perhaps 
have risen in the minds of our readers. " If," it will 
be said, " speech is so early and unconsciously ac- 
quired, in a word, so natural, why not leave it en- 
tirely to nature, and, by speaking just as our senses 
or feelings prompt us, encourage a simplicity which 
is one of the greatest charms of a good address ? " 
The first and easiest answer to this lies in the great 
rarity of good speakers even among educated men : 
this has been the subject of so much comment of late 
that it hardly needs formal proofs. But secondly, it 
may be added that, even were the number of good 
speakers greater, surely an attempt to organize the 
rules of the art will benefit those who by lack of 
opportunity or for other reasons are not included in 
that lucky number. But the most complete and real 
answer to this fallacy consists in an entire denial of 
the " natural" hypothesis. Speech is by no means 
a " natural" function in the usual sense of that 
word.* It is a complex and difficult acquirement, 
perfected through many centuries in the course of 
progressive civilization ; it is one of the highest of 
those hereditary lessons which really make the 
education of each member of an intellectual commu- 
nity the affair of ages. In our speech, as in some 

* The phrase " natural," if it means anything, must be 
understood as born with us, and not acquired by practice and 
education. 



154 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

other branches of knowledge, we may say that our 
schooling began centuries before our birth ; and 
when one side of speech — language — receives the 
attention of the highest minds of the present day, 
surely the other and supplementary side — elocution 
— should not be neglected. 

Thus much requires to be said on the musical 
element of articulate speech ; but there is another of 
equal importance, and of even more complexity. 

The mechanism lies entirely above the larynx and 
consists principally of the cavities of the mouth and 
nose, the tongue, palate, teeth, and lips. It has two 
principal actions, the one forming what are called 
the vowel sounds, and the other the consonants. The 
former of these consists in the addition of a distinc- 
tive quality or tone to the speaking note, by modi- 
fications in the shape of the orifice from which it 
issues. Thus, by allowing the sound to pass through 
an expanded and trumpet-like oral aperture, one 
character of vowel-sound is given ; and another 
again by almost closing the lips so that the mouth 
represents a hollow bell. Many persons will have 
appreciated this fact already, and those who by ac- 
cident have not done so can make the experiment 
for themselves. By pronouncing the different 
vowels singly aloud, and then finding some word, 
most conveniently a monosyllable, in which the 
same sound occurs, it is easy to distinguish the 
shape taken by the organs of speech in the forma- 
tion of each. Indeed, the experiment has before 
now been carried a step farther ; and machines have 
been made, which, by a combination of a small 
wind-instrument to give a note, and pipes of varied 
form and orifice to modify this note, have imitated 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 155 

very successfully the vowels of human speech. The 
speaking machine of Dr. Kempeler excited much 
interest some years ago. Kratzenstein in 1779, and 
Professor Willis recently, have both contrived ap- 
paratus of the same nature ; and the latter has suc- 
cessfully analysed the principles on which they 
depend. 

The second office of forming the consonants de- 
pends on the same physical parts somewhat differ- 
ently employed. For the production of consonants 
consists, generally speaking, either in a more or 
less sudden starting of the stream of air, or in its 
equally abrupt stoppage. But as this function is of 
a complex nature, and lies at the root of distinct 
articulation, it will be well to explain it by a cursory 
analysis of the mechanical processes involved in 
the pronunciation of the various letters. 

The attempt to classify the alphabet of our lan- 
guage is one of considerable difficulty. For of the 
twenty-six letters which it comprises some are evi- 
dently used with two different values, and others are 
mere compounds of two simpler sounds. The cause 
of this is to be sought in its history. Probably no 
European tongue has so greatly altered with the 
course of time, and by the addition of new dialectic 
elements. It is now of the Teutonic languages by 
far the most remote from what we must consider to 
have been the original state of all language ; a con- 
dition in which syllables were similar in spelling and 
in pronunciation. At the present time, of above 
70,000 words which compose our vocabulary, not 
more than seventy, or one in a 1000, are literally 
and " phonetically" correct. 

It is thus clear that the present alphabet, though 



150 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

sufficient for all purposes of ordinary intercourse, is 
quite insufficient as a transcript of the sounds actually 
used in speech. From this and from other causes there^ 
is some difference of opinion as to their real num- 
ber. Bishop Wilkins thought thirty-four letters, of 
which eight were vowels, and twenty-six consonants, 
would include all possible sounds. Volney, who 
aimed at establishing an universal language, affirmed 
that fifty-eight or sixty letters would be necessary 
for this purpose. More recently, Sir John Herschel 
establishes thirty-four letters for the English lan- 
guage, of which thirteen are vowels and twenty-one 
consonants ; by the addition of two or three more 
vowels, and as many consonants, in all forty letters, 
he states that all the sounds of every spoken language 
can be rendered. But it is not necessary to proceed 
to this minuteness for the ordinary purposes of cor- 
rect speech. A very convenient classification con- 
sists of ten vowel sounds, and twenty consonants, in 
all thirty letters. This is numerically only four 
more than the ordinary alphabet contains, but the 
real difference is greater than would appear in that 
manner. For in the present alphabet there are only 
twenty simple characters by which thirty sounds are 
to be represented ; the remaining ten are somewhat 
clumsily produced, either by the union of two sim- 
ple sounds to form one letter, or by different values 
attached to the same written character in its varying 
relations. 

The vowel sounds* may be divided into three 
classes. The first class consists of four sounds, all 

* The classification hei-e adopted is that of Mr. Bishop. 
Vide, (i On Articulate Sounds, and the Causes and Cure of 
Impediments of Speech." London, 1851. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 157 

of which, being formed far back in the throat, have 
been termed pharyngeal vowels ; these are the sounds 
of the vowels in the following words — ball, bar, bat, 
but. It will be remarked that three of these are re- 
presented by the same letter, a; although the sounds 
are essentially different. There is, moreover, a fourth 
sound belonging to this single letter ; and in this in- 
stance we have the best proof of the insufficiency of 
the ordinary alphabet to express our spoken lan- 
guage. 

The next group also contains four sounds ; these 
are respectively contained in the words, bate, bet, 
beet, bit. As they are principally formed by the 
tongue and palate, they are named the linguo-palatal 
vowels. 

The third class contains only two sounds, those of 
the words, bone and boot. These are mainly formed 
by the lips, almost closed, and are hence called the 
labial vowels. 

Thus of the whole ten sounds four are modifica- 
tions of the written character a; two of e; two of 
o; i and u each represent only one sound. Indeed, 
strictly speaking, there are only three simple vowel 
sounds in the English alphabet, namely, a, e, o ; for 
i and u, when pronounced as they stand alone, are 
diphthongs. 

Diphthongs are formed by the combination of two 
simple vowel sounds. This combination is produced 
by sliding the one sound rapidly and insensibly into 
the other. There is no actual mixture of the actions 
necessary to produce each sound, beyond what re- 
sults from a succession almost too quick for the ear 
to follow. But by pronouncing the diphthong 
slowly we can separate the component parts. Mr. 



Bishop points out the possibility of triphthongs, or 
combinations of three vowels, and gives the instances 
of wound, why, and your. 

The classification of the consonants is more com- 
plicated than that of the vowels. Indeed, no one 
arrangement can be proposed which adequately se- 
parates them. The simplest division is into those 
which can, and those which cannot, be pronounced 
without a vowel ; the former only put a 'partial im- 
pediment in the way of the current of air, and are 
hence called the "continuous" consonants, or semi- 
vowels ; the latter completely check the stream, and 
are called "explosive" consonants or mutes. 

The semi-vowels are as follows — f 9 I, m, n, r, s, 
v, z, tk (of two forms, as in thin and then), sh, zh, 
ng. To these we may add h, the simple aspirate 
sound. 

The mutes are — b, d, g, k, p, t. 

But this classification alone is hardly sufficient. 
We may accordingly employ the same means of 
distinction between consonants as we did for the 
vowels ; by looking to the parts of the vocal organs 
used in their production. These are, indeed, all 
called into action, but in very different proportions 
for the different groups of sounds. 

In the throat the guttural letters g and k, also the 
aspirate h, are more especially formed. The lips 
alone form the letters b and p — hence called labials. 
The upper row of teeth with the lower lip produce 
the labio-dentals n and/. It is quite possible to pro- 
duce these letters by the use of the lower teeth and 
the upper lip ; and the experiment is worth trying, 
for it will be found by no means easy ; the difficulty 
experienced is a practical evidence of the complex 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 159 

nature of the actions employed in speech, and the 
amounts to which long habit makes them automatic. 
The tongue and teeth together form s and z, with 
the equally simple sounds of sh and zh, as well as th 
and dh. These are thence called linguo-dentals. The 
tongue with the roof of the mouth, or palate, pro- 
duce the sounds of Z, r, d, and t, hence called linguo- 



The letters m, n, and the sound ng, are usually 
called nasals, from their essentially depending on 
the passage of some of the vocal stream through 
the nose. It is well known that when, either by 
natural defect, or by the swelling usually attending 
a cold in the head, the nasal passage is stopped up, 
these letters cannot be pronounced, m becoming b, 
and n, d. 

But, more strictly speaking, in the formation of 
m the lips are also used ; hence it may be called a 
labio-nasal. So, too, in the formation of n and ng 
the tongue and palate are engaged. Hence these 
may be termed linguo-palato-nasals. The remaining 
letters must be separately examined. 

C, when hard, is equivalent to k; when soft is 
the same as s. 

G has a second, or soft sound, as in the word 
German; here it is equivalent to J, which is itself 
formed of d and a soft sibilant zh. In French this 
d is not pronounced, andj is simply zh, as mjoli. 
Gh, which occurs in many English words, is pro- 
nounced without any guttural sound, as in the word 
daughter. In the Gaelic tongues, and in Italian 
and Persian, the guttural is preserved. 

Q is merely k followed invariably by u. H has 
been put among the guttural letters, though perhaps 



100 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

it does not properly belong there. Indeed, the Greek 
Language was probably correct in not considering it 
as a letter at all, but as a " breathing." It is formed 
by no particular part of the oral cavity, and is the 
sound of a strong current of air passing rapidly 
through the fauces. When very much forced, it 
merges into a guttural. W should, perhaps, appear 
as a labial. It seems, however, to consist of a rapid 
reduplication of the sound of u, and in English ap- 
pears always as a sort of diphthong with another 
vowel. In Welch it stands alone, and then is equi- 
valent to u. X y when occurring in the beginning 
of foreign words, is pronounced as z ; when occur- 
ring in the middle of a word it is equivalent to ks 
or kz. Y y called in French the Greek I, has the 
force of this letter, and a power of making peculiar 
diphthongs with other vowels much as does w. J, 
in Italian and German, has the sound of y, and also 
in English in the Hebrew word Hallelujah ; though 
in Jehovah, and in other similar words from the 
Hebrew, we retain the ordinary;' sound. 

Having thus, as briefly as possible, traced the 
operation of the various parts ministering to speech, 
we are led on to a few general remarks suggested by 
the review. The first that will naturally occur to 
every one is the complexity of the actions involved in 
it. This idea had struck our great physiologist, Sir 
Charles Bell, who draws attention to the large num- 
ber of organs " whose consent is necessary " for the 
utterance of a single word. If we run over the 
various parts called into activity by the exercise of 
speech the remark is fully borne out. As a means 
of forming some estimate of their number we will 
give a brief enumeration of the muscles only, omit- 
ting the other structures necessarily involved. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 161 

In the larynx itself are eight muscles more imme- 
diately controlling the tension of the vocal mem- 
branes. The tongue and palate contain about twenty 
more ; the lips and cavity of the mouth comprise 
ten others. All these, to the number of thirty-eight 
or forty, are employed directly in the articulate ut- 
terance of a sentence. When we add to these the 
muscles of the thorax, employed indirectly in regu- 
lating the stream of air, and advert, lastly, to the vari- 
ous other accessory muscles of the extremities or else- 
where, without some action of which it is difficult, 
if not impossible, to speak with any fluency, we 
have reached a point of complication hardly par- 
alleled by any other of our daily functions. 

It is easy to foresee some practical results which 
flow out of this statement. And first : — The phy- 
siological result of all action of muscle is the pro- 
duction of fatigue. Not any one can continue its 
straining condition for more than a few seconds 
without an interval of rest. Even the ever-working 
muscle of the heart has its short period of repose, 
between two successive pulsations ; the repose 
amounting to nearly a quarter of the time of activity. 
It is then essential, even in speech, to provide 
against muscular fatigue ; a result which is brought 
about by pauses and deliberation. And this is a 
more important corollary from the foregoing pro- 
positions than it at first appears ; for the majority of 
persons err on the side of too quick speaking. It is 
true that we now and then meet with the converse 
error ; and perhaps the tiresome delay of a slow de- 
livery attracts more notice than over-rapidity of ut- 
terance. But such cases usually occur in lymphatic 
and languid temperaments, and form a consistent 



162 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

part of a sluggish and unexci table disposition. 
Whereas the hurried and inarticulate speakers be- 
long to no class in particular, and are equally found 
among members of all the various professions 
which do not depend on oratory for their prose- 
cution. And if these remarks are true of ordinary 
conversational speech, they acquire a double im- 
portance when transferred to public speaking, and 
the occasions on which one man has to address many 
others. The result of some observation leads us to 
mention the remarkable length of the pauses made 
between following sentences by many of our best 
oratorical speakers. A pause of from two to three 
seconds by the watch is very common, and recurs 
at intervals of from three to seven minutes in an or- 
dinary discourse, whether on sacred or secular sub- 
jects. Five seconds not uncommonly mark the 
conclusion of a particular branch of the argument ; 
and even longer pauses have a pleasant effect at rare 
intervals, and after any considerations more than 
usually abstruse. For it is to be borne in mind that 
the attention in this matter bears a close analogy to 
the bodily organs ; and that an earnest hearer can 
only be kept up by occasional relief; his forces 
must be husbanded like the strength of a generous 
horse ; for, however good the will, however interest- 
ing the pursuit, they will both infallibly be worn out 
by a course devoid of breathing time and intermis- 
sions. We may perhaps better estimate the effect of 
occasional pauses in oratory by a comparison which 
appears to have some foundation in truth. It is a 
well-known fact that the old painted glass which 
forms so magnificent an ornament of our mediaeval 
buildings, and of which the secret is said to be all 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 163 

but lost, is remarkable for the quantity of pure 
white which is interwoven in its patterns ; this can- 
not clearly do otherwise than diminish the actual 
intensity of the colouring, and yet its removal dam- 
ages more seriously the general effect than that of 
any other element. Now a fair explanation of this 
seems to be afforded by the fact that too continuous 
colour fatigues the eye ; just as in a like manner too 
constant sound wearies the ear, and as attention too 
unremitting overpowers the mind itself. The ana- 
logy of the various senses and of the central intelli- 
gence is really so close in its various relations, that 
parallels have almost the force of argument, and are 
worthy the most serious consideration. 

It is evident that any such principle as this will 
require modification to a greater or less extent when 
carried into practice. The nature of the subject, the 
place, and the audience may all call for special atten- 
tion. For instance, the greatest exception will have 
to be made in regard to the class of oratory usual] v 
termed " husting's speaking," or more graphically 
by our transatlantic kinsmen as u stump oratory." 
Of this we profess no foolish contempt. It is a 
great engine in the hands of an honest man ; though 
considered rhetorically its standard is not high. 
Perhaps its most essential character may be stated 
as the terse, antithetical, and almost paradoxical 
enunciations of truths, more or less trite, in short 
simple sentences. It needs no very sustained atten- 
tion, and is marked by a rapid succession of short 
pauses instead of longer and less frequent intermis- 
sions. But it is hardly an affair of art, and more the 
fruit of instinct than the higher branches of speaking. 
We may, perhaps, add our opinion that one of the 



1(>4 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

worst signs of modern taste, an evidence of the almost 
utter extinction of true eloquence in England, has 
been shown in the elevation of this spurious rhetoric 
to the pulpit. Its chief apostle has, like his more 
avowedly histrionic brethren, had exaggerated praise 
and popularity for a very brief period ; we sincerely 
hope that such a false and superficial style may, 
now that the first fashion has passed away, find few 
admirers and still less imitation. 

Rapidity of speech is not only the result of actual 
hurry, and irrespective of the language, but, in 
England at least, is favoured by a peculiarity of 
the language itself. The principle of accentuating 
strongly one syllable of every word is susceptible 
of much abuse and exaggeration. For an excess of 
stress on the accented part, or a neglected enunciation 
of the unaccented members, produce the same evil 
result; the sentence becomes, what often strikes 
foreigners very disagreeably, a string of audible ac- 
cented syllables standing out from an inaudible mass 
of inarticulate sounds. We ourselves learn to supply 
this deficiency from habit and memory ; but it is 
none the less reprehensible on that account. To 
this defect of speech much attention has been given, 
and perhaps it has attained an undue prominence 
from the neglect of cautions equally essential. At 
the same time no fault is so common or so little re- 
prehended by society. The omission of aspirates is 
reckoned a disqualification for the company of gen- 
tlemen ; while a loose and languid utterance, which 
articulates none but the accented syllable, and com- 
pletely drops the terminal letters of every word, is, 
in some quarters, held evidence of good breeding. 

Another physiological deduction from a review of 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 165 

the mechanism of speech is that many of the actions 
of muscles involved in the articulation of long com- 
binations of simple sounds are not only complex but 
contradictory. Some even require the mouth and 
tongue to fall back to the position of rest before the 
proper sound can again be framed. Ignorance, or 
inattention to this fact, is a fertile cause of imperfect 
speech. Its least severe form is far from uncom- 
mon, where the speaker seems to grudge every 
atom of movement required : the mouth is hardly 
opened, the teeth remain close together, and the 
sounds formed within are pent up from want of 
freer means of exit. The general result is indistinct- 
ness combined with a whistling sort of intonation 
which men of other nations notice as a common 
characteristic of English speech. They usually 
refer it, with partial truth, to the nature of the lan- 
guage itself; though much more is probably due to 
temperament, carelessness, and the lamentable neg- 
lect of instruction into which we have fallen on 
the subject. Imperfections of this character, carried 
to their highest degree, terminate in stammering. 
It is now a well-ascertained fact that scarcely any 
instances of this common infirmity depend on struc- 
tural defect or malformation of the vocal organs. 
A very exceptional shortness of the frcenum of the 
tongue, nearly always discovered during infancy, 
and some thickness of utterance, dependent on abnor- 
mal enlargement of the tonsils, are the most obvious 
possible causes. All varieties of hoarseness should 
be excepted, because, though they more or less com- 
pletely destroy the musical character of the speaking 
note, they in no way interfere with articulation, or 
prevent the speaker from being perfectly intelligible. 



166 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

We have already mentioned that the cases of mutes 
are entirely dependent on absence of the sense of 
hearing, there being abundant observations to prove 
that there is no physical deficiency in the apparatus 
of speech. But there is another element involved in 
this question ; and physiology here gives us valuable 
assistance, by showing the intimate dependence of 
good articulation on the brain and nervous centres. 

It may appear somewhat paradoxical to state that 
we all stammer more or less ; but it is nevertheless 
true : and any cause sufficient to destroy the concert 
and co-ordination of the very numerous parts acting 
under the control of the will at times produces this 
result. The commonest cause is the emotion of 
fright ; hence one of the conventional modes of 
representing fright on the stage consists in sudden 
stammering. Anger also is far from an uncommon 
cause, surprise and sudden joy are less common ; in 
a few persons sleepiness is sufficient to produce it ;* 
and the more advanced stages of alcoholic intoxica- 
tion usually exhibit the symptom. In some forms 
of paralytic disease, where the nerves of the tongue 
and fauces are involved, stammering is a prominent 
feature ; it may then occur after what is popularly 
termed " a stroke" even in the most articulate 
speaker. 

* The converse fact is also remarkable, for there are many 
persons, who, being habitually loose and careless speakers in 
ordinary conversation, rise, under excitement sufficiently 
powerful, into an accurate and forcible elocution. In this 
manner the fiery Celt of the Highlands, as Sir Walter Scott 
mentions, only speaks pure and articulate English when 
roused by the vehemence of rage. In the latter case the ex- 
cited brain stimulates the organs to an energy beyond their 
usual limit, while in the former the volition so far exceeds the 
power of execution as partially to overwhelm it. 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 167 

But the inveterate stammering which of itself 
amounts to a morbid condition is rather different in 
its history. It is usually commenced insensibly and 
unnoticed at an early period of life; in great measure 
it depends on the child finding more than ordinary 
difficulty in mastering certain articulate combina- 
tions. If to this there be added a nervous and irrit- 
able temper of mind, the attempts at overcoming the 
impediment give rise to unsystematic and ill-con- 
trolled efforts. By degrees the co-ordination of the 
organs of speech, which from the first has been im- 
perfectly acquired, becomes more and more impaired, 
and the unsuccessful straining gains a spasmodic 
character. At this stage a painful consciousness of 
defect usually springs up in the mind of the sufferer, 
and there is added the additional evil of hurry and 
nervousness. In this manner, unless some control- 
ling influence be early employed, the fault will in- 
fallibly become confirmed by time, and ultimately 
all but incurable. 

We believe this to be the history of far the greater 
number of such cases ; others probably depend on 
example and imitation from the society of stam- 
merers ; and a few are connected with a real morbid 
condition of the nervous centres, known medically 
as Chorea, popularly as St. Vitus's Dance. 

This view of the habitual origin of stammering is 
confirmed by the existence of varieties in the defect. 
Every one will have noticed some of these differences, 
and the dissimilar character of spasm in the several 
instances. A distinction may be made according 
to the situation of the impediment. This is in the 
first kind at the glottis or upper opening of the 
windpipe, and produces what is really a very ex- 



108 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

aggerated form of hesitation ; for by the closure of 
this organ the musical note and current of air issuing 
from the larynx are entirely intercepted; the syl- 
lables pronounced cease suddenly, and involuntary 
silences result. A similar effect is often produced 
as completely in the labial form of stammering, and 
occasionally in severe instances of the other forms. 

In a second kind the tract immediately above the 
glottis, usually termed the " isthmus of the fauces," 
is implicated. The posterior part of the mouth and 
upper region of the throat being spasmodically con- 
tracted, a guttural and aspirate sound issues, either 
alone or as an affix to words not requiring it. This 
difficulty will be specially felt in pronouncing the 
words containing the aspirate, the letter g, the com- 
pounds ch, gh, and the letter k in some combinations. 

In another and very common form the dorsum of 
the tongue with the palate or the teeth are the ob- 
stacles. The number of letters to whose formation 
these organs contribute being comparatively large, 
the defect introduced into speech is prominent and 
frequently recurring ; it causes the more remark as 
the continued or imperfect pronunciation of letters 
in these groups gives rise to protracted hissing and 
buzzing sounds ; just as in the previous instance 
there was a near approach to the voice of some lower 
animals.* In this form of the infirmity the group 
of Z, d, and t, with their compounds th and dh, form 
the great difficulty to some, and the letters s, z, sh, 
amdj, with the soft ch, to others. 

* It is a curious and somewhat ludicrous fact that a stam- 
merer sometimes attracts the notice of dogs, who look upon 
these singular sounds as voluntary, and receive them accord- 
ingly- 



THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 169 

Lastly, there is the labial form of stammering, in 
which the nose may or may not be implicated. 
The purely labial letters b and p, and the labio- 
dentals, v, f, form the obstacles in the first place, 
and the nasals m and n, in the second. In the 
former, as we have said above, there is total silence 
by closure of the lips during the spasm ; and in the 
latter the pent-up air is sent with a humming noise 
through the nasal passages. 

It is, of course, possible for two of these forms of 
defect to coexist in the same person; but, as a 
general rule, it will not be difficult to refer each 
case to one of the classes given above. And a re- 
cognition of the faulty parts leads easily to simple 
methods of cure or of alleviation. 

One other form of imperfection in speech requires 
notice before concluding. This is the unintentional 
use of the " falsetto" by adults. It is not quite 
certain what is the exact mode in which this variety 
of note is at any time produced. But its effect is 
the utterance of soft, very reedy tones, about an 
octave above the usual pitch of the male voice. 
Arguing from the analogy of the harmonics on 
stringed instruments which are of similar quality, it 
would seem to be due to the formation of more nodal 
points in the vocal chord than are required for the 
fundamental note. 

Most male voices have a few such notes, and 
bass singers usually more than tenors. It is some- 
times a voice of very fine musical character, and, 
though considered rare, always takes one part, the 
alto, of cathedral music : in the older school of 
English and Italian madrigal composition it is so 



170 THE SPEAKER AT HOME. 

freely used as to raise the suspicion that it was 
commoner, or more cultivated, formerly than at the 
present day. Even alto singers, however, in ordi- 
nary conversation and in public speaking, use the 
lower and more natural notes of their voices. And 
the defect which we are now considering consists 
either in the entire or partial use of a falsetto note 
as the speaking tone. Most men can intentionally 
do this for a short time ; and it is evidently intended 
in some of the old comedies to be used on the stage 
as a means of counterfeiting the female voice. But 
when involuntary the habit is incorrect and very 
unpleasant. It is, indeed, the correlative of stam- 
mering, and probably depends on some lack of co- 
ordination in the laryngeal muscles, just as stammer- 
ing does upon the same defect in the muscles of the 
tongue and mouth. Usually it commences at the 
time when the boy's voice " breaks" — a time when 
rapid increase in size and development of the larynx 
cause the pitch to descend an octave within the 
course of a year or two. Its causes seem ultimately 
to rest in a slow and imperfect performance of this 
change, and also very frequently in a want of that 
sensitiveness to the pitch of sounds which goes by 
the name of u musical ear." For it is to be noticed 
that persons suffering from this imperfection are 
often no more aware of the rapid transition of the 
voice from one register to the other than are the 
lower orders in London of the difference between the 
v and w, or between aspirated and unaspirated words. 
It is, however, like speech itself, only an acquired 
habit. It may be conquered by constant warning 
and perseverance until the correct method has be- 
come automatic. 




171 



APPENDIX. 



Rev. and dear Sir, 

^N accordance with the suggestion con- 
tained in page 43 of " The Speaker at 
Home/' I hasten to make one or two 
observations which have occurred to 
me during its perusal, as bearing upon 
one part of your subject, viz. the management of 
the voice in speaking. 

Too much praise cannot be accorded to you for 
calling the attention of the clergy and public speakers 
to this most important subject ; for it is one — singu- 
larly enough — that has not received the meed of at- 
tention it so much deserves, seeing that in it lies one 
of the most important means upon which the success 
or failure of the public speaker depends. 

I need not refer to the universally acknowledged 
value of correct principles of action in the cultiva- 
tion of the voice to those who devote themselves to 
the art of singing ; and it appears to me that much 
may be done by the speaker, if not towards enchain- 
ing an audience, at least in the acquirement of a 
power of transmitting his ideas to each individual of 
a large assembly, even in the most remote corner of 
a large edifice ; and it is to this branch of the sub- 
ject I shall confine my remarks, as being the one 
least of all touched upon in your little work, but which 
seems to me to be one, which, when treating of 



172 APPENDIX. 

public speaking, demands no small degree of atten- 
tion. 

One of the great mistakes public speakers make 
is loud speaking, as if, by applying all the force, 
not only of the vocal organs, but also all the 
bodily effort that can be mustered, they could in the 
slightest degree aid the conveyance of articulation ; 
when experience so clearly proves that, on the con- 
trary, it is by the total suppression of bodily effort 
beyond an easy gesticulation, and, in its stead, em- 
ploying the concentrated force obtained from the 
co-operation and combined action of the several 
vocal organs in their own strength, that can even so 
plant the articulation that the production of it is 
more a matter of ease than effort, and the convey- 
ance of it a natural consequence. 

Now, the two essentials to conveying words to 
the whole of a large audience are, a prow.pt co-ope- 
ration of the several vocal organs, and the power of 
sustaining that combination when required ; or, in 
other words, the co-operation of the several organs, 
so as to produce the most brilliant, firm, elegant, and 
round vocal tone, added to a clear articulation, with 
the promptitude necessary to rapid speaking, and at 
the same time to possess the power of controlling it 
when obtained, so as to fit it to long or short sylla- 
bles. To do this effectually it will be absolutely 
necessary to pay great attention to the pronunciation 
of the vowels ; for I am of opinion that however ex- 
pedient it may be that the consonants, in all their 
variety, should be pronounced with every attention 
to exactness, yet the grand source from whence the 
speaker should derive his power of transmitting 
speech is the proper fitting of the vowels, each in a 



APPENDIX. 173 

perfect mould formed for it within the mouth. The 
outlay of a little trouble upon this matter at first 
will at once convince you that there is a practical 
reason why physiologists all agree that the vocal 
organs have a power to mould or concentrate a vi- 
brating column of air. Indeed, I have had abun- 
dant evidence of its being palpably felt, and it is to 
the attainment of this power that I will more parti- 
cularly direct your attention. 

In a work of mine on " The Structure and Man- 
agement of the Vocal Organ,"* I have endeavoured 
to explain this, but with what success in writing I 
will not venture to say ; but this I can affirm, that 
my pupils never fail in producing and feeling it, and 
that too in the course of a very few lessons. 

Now there are five vowels — these are all I think 
necessary at first — which should be diligently prac- 
tised until the mould for each one becomes automatic ; 
and the plan of procedure I would recommend is, to 
begin by reading aloud several times the same pas- 
sage deliberately, as in speaking or reading to an 
audience, each time varying the pitch or tonic of the 
voice — in fact, intoning — and you will soon discover 
which pitch appears the most comfortable and tires 
you the least. You should then read the passage in 
the pitch you have found the easiest, giving to your 
reading the inflections which your mind suggests as 
being the best adapted to the subject. Sing now 
the vowel a, as pronounced in the Italian language, 
upon the same pitch, and also, upon the semitones im- 
mediately above and below it, to the extent to which 
you usually carry the inflections of your voice when 
reading or speaking, and upon each of these sounds 
* Published by Messrs. Cocks and Co. New Burlington St. 



174 APPENDIX. 

endeavour to mould or fit the tone and articulation 
in its proper place in the mouth, in such a manner 
that the vibration of the vocal ligaments is free, the 
tone brilliant, and the articulation clear, bearing in 
mind that it is your aim to aid its conveyance or 
travelling properties by & forward or outward pro- 
nunciation. 

After a few trials the mouth will be found to " lay 
hold of" the tone, and you will have little difficulty 
in sustaining it. An hour's practice at this every 
day will soon establish in your mind the note upon 
which you feel the sensation of " laying hold of the 
tone" in the most certain manner. This tone should 
then be made the base of operation, and should be 
practised until it can be produced at pleasure. The 
base or foundation tone having been formed it will 
now be necessary to pass to the semitone above it, 
and, as another exercise, to the semitone below it, 
singing the two notes in one breath, so as to carry 
with you, to the next note, the sensation and mould- 
ing which you have experienced in the note which 
is your base of operation. When this can be done 
with ease, and the same quality of tone and articu- 
lation produced upon both the notes, this practice 
should be extended to the entire range of semitones 
in the compass of the usual inflections of voice in 
reading.* 

If this exercise be clearly understood and felt, 

* The advantages to be derived from singing these vowels 
will be at once obvious. The prolongation of the vowel 
sounds so much beyond their ordinary speaking value will 
materially assist you in forming a proper and effective mould 
for each one in the mouth. The vocal organs having taken 
their position, and you are endeavouring to maintain or sus- 
tain it, the prolongation of it gives you time, not only to 



APPENDIX. lib 

there will be very little difficulty in changing the 
vowel a to i (Italian pronunciation) ; and so on with 
all the others, fitting each vowel in like manner : in 
fact, allowing the base or foundation of the vocal 
tone to remain the same, and simply varying the 
ornamentation or change of vowel according to your 
own desires. This, then, at once establishes the 
power of transmitting these five vowels to the re- 
quired distance; after which the numerous modifi- 
cations of them, and their relation to consonants, 
may be readily got over. Do not suppose that this is 
to be effectually accomplished without some trouble. 
But be assured that the careful devoting of a portion 
of each day to the practice of such exercises as these 
will soon bring the muscular organs of the voice 
under control. 

This control really consists in the total subjection 
of the physical powers of the vocal organ to the 
direction of the mind, and hence those varied and 
pleasing inflections of the speaking voice which, when 
combined with fluent and carefully constructed sen- 
tences and an earnestness of purpose, produce that 
elegant and eloquent delivery that becomes almost 
irresistible. 

The " stirring tones of earnestness" are, no doubt, 
always in a degree efficacious in arresting the atten- 
tion of an audience ; but how much more powerful 
would the effect of these " stirring tones" be had they 
been previously cultivated with a due regard to 

ascertain the exact amount of concentrating capacity and pro- 
pelling power you have gained, but also to study, test, and 
feel each of the articulate positions with such certainty, that 
they may eventually be changed, varied, or modified, with 
the rapidity required in^ speaking, without losing in the slight- 
est degree their clearness and brilliancy of expression. 



176 APPENDIX. 

their individual beauty and the power of convey- 
ing, in combination, an articulation at once clear, 
expressive, and unmistakable. 

The natural constitution of the vocal organs differs 
in each individual. In some persons the organs are 
free and flexible in their action and easy of control, 
that is, they are susceptible of the most delicate im- 
pressions ; and in such cases the mind of the speaker, 
being thoroughly engrossed with the sentiment he 
wishes to convey, will doubtless attract the hearer's 
attention and impress his mind with similar emotions. 

But what is to be said of the organs which, on the 
contrary, are stiff, hard, and unwieldy, and whose 
owners have difficulty in correctly intoning two sim- 
ple sounds ? 

In such cases there might be even a greater de- 
gree of" evident feeling" experienced by the speaker 
or singer, but it has no effect upon the organs, they 
will not answer to the dictation of the mind ; in 
fact, it is a rusty engine that must be cleaned and 
oiled before it can be made to work. Force it, and 
you will break it ; use it kindly and coaxingly, and 
you may bring it under subjection. 

My own experience in the teaching of singing has 
been, that I have seldom questioned the student's 
desire to effect what was proposed for him, but have 
invariably found the power of volition insufficient 
to control the muscular portion of the organs, in con- 
sequence of their habitual rigidity and obstinacy in 
refusing to work with freedom. I therefore believe 
it to arise from the almost universal habit of a forced 
preparation to sing, which at once confines the ope- 
ration of the organs or fixes them so tightly that the 
volition (however powerfully exerted) fails to in- 
fluence them. 



APPENDIX. 177 

In illustration of this I can instance numerous 
cases, in which not only the natural compass of the 
voice has been lessened, but the quality of tone im- 
paired, by the obstinate resistance of the vocal organs 
to anything like elasticity, and have afterwards 
found, by adopting even the most simple measures 
to relieve the oppression — such as making the pupil 
walk round the room, and, whilst walking, attempt 
to sing the same exercise that had so often failed — 
and this trifling act has so drawn off the forced pre- 
paration that the upward scale has been extended 
instantaneously as many as four or five notes, and 
the downward scale in like proportion, to the great 
delight both of myself and pupil. 

Of the necessity of a very spare use of the breath, 
I will give one or two illustrations ; and they are 
these : — 

The near approximation of the vocal ligaments at 
the commencement of speaking or singing would be 
likely to be prevented if a stream of breath either 
too copious or too impulsive were forced between 
them, and thus their freedom in vibrating would be 
partially checked ; besides, a large portion of the 
emitted air would pass out without its being acted 
upon by the vibrations of the vocal ligaments, and 
thus a whistling sound would be intermingled with 
the vibrations, causing what is generally known by 
the term " huskiness. ,, Just as if we allow the entire 
pressure of a gasometer to have its full force upon a 
small jet burner, the flame will be irregular and 
buzzing, whilst, if the pressure be regulated accord- 
ing to the capacity of the jet, a brilliant flame of per- 
fect outline will be the result. 

Let it not be understood that I by any means 

N 



178 APPENDIX. 

accept the notion that a good singer must necessa- 
rily be a good speaker, or vice versa. Certainly 
not ! But this I do believe — that if the speaker 
were to cultivate his voice for speaking with equal 
care and system that the singer cultivates his for 
singing, both will ultimately reap the same advan- 
tages in their separate spheres of action. 

The limits of a communication such as the pre- 1 
sent precludes my saying more than this — that should 
I by these few remarks have succeeded in drawing 
closer the relation between singing and public speak- 
ing or reading, and in showing the necessity of a 
systematic cultivation of the voice, I shall rejoice 
that I have been thus enabled to direct attention, 
even in so slight a degree, to the consideration of so 
important a matter. 

Believe me to remain, dear Sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

Fred. Kingsbury. 

18, Cecil Street, Strand. 



P. S. In support of my whole theory I might appeal 
to the fact of a singer, possessed of no extraordinary phy- 
sical or mental qualifications, being able to make himself 
distinctly heard in the extreme parts of a very large edi- 
fice, and that too without any perceptible or painful effort ; 
also to the well-known fact that where the voice is 
cultivated to a high degree of artistic excellence, it will 
often be heard to rise clearly and distinctly above the 
sound of a band and chorus. This superiority is un- 
doubtedly gained by the tone and travelling properties 
of the voice being properly cultivated. 



APPENDIX. 179 



Nov. 20, 1859. 

1" ORD * presents his compliments to the Rev. J. 

J. Halcombe, and is happy to comply with the re- 
quest which is contained in the note on p. 47 of " The 
Speaker at Home." 

Having often heard that the longer a member sits 
in the House of Commons without speaking, the harder 
it is for him to make a beginning, I determined to lose 
no time in delivering my maiden speech. It had not, 
until last election, been my intention to enter Parlia- 
ment ; so that I had never " got up" any political sub- 
jects. It was therefore necessary, before any speech 
could even be planned, that I should take a subject and 
study, so as to form definite opinions upon it. The fol- 
lowing plan I adopted. Having chosen for 

my topic, I read all the debates and pamphlets which 
could throw any light upon it, and wrote very numerous 
notes while reading. When this part of the labour was 
accomplished, I reviewed the notes, and arranged them 
under heads, in an order which had suggested itself to 
my mind. I then cast out all that appeared to be irre- 
levant, and whatever did not make straight for the point 
at which I wished to aim. To make a short schedule 
of the various heads, together with memoranda of some 
embellishments and illustrations was my next care. 
And when this schedule was clearly imprinted on my 
mind, I frequently spoke the speech over to myself whilst 
out walking, in order to accustom myself to various 
modes of expression. Then I wrote out the whole 
speech, bestowing particular attention upon the Exor- 
dium and on the Peroration. And lastly, I learnt these 

* The blank spaces have been left in accordance with a request to that 
effect made by the writer of the above in a subsequent letter. 



180 APPENDIX. 

two parts by heart, but never looked again at the rest 
of the speech. 

The same plan (leaving much more to the chances 
of the critical moment) I have found to answer on less 
important occasions. 



T^HE following incident will illustrate the advantage 
of speaking naturally and not straining the voice. 
A clergyman, on first preaching in a large London church, 
had requested a friend to seat himself at the extreme 
end of the church, to tell him whether he succeeded in 
making himself heard. His friend reported that in the 
prayer before the sermon, when he spoke without the 
least effort, and in an earnest but subdued voice, he 
was perfectly audible ; but that during the sermon, when 
he evidently exerted himself to the utmost, scarcely a 
word was distinguished. 



THE END. 



CHISWICK PRESS :— PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM, 
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

■■■■■II #■ 

027 249 843 A 






